reasonable doubt

A reasonable doubt is an actual doubt that you are conscious of after going over in your minds the entire case, giving consideration to all the testimony and every part of it. If you then feel uncertain and not fully convinced that the defendant is guilty, and believe that you are acting in a reasonable manner, and if you believe that a reasonable man in any matter of like importance would hesitate to act because of such a doubt as you are conscious of having, that is a reasonable doubt, of which the defendant is entitled to have the benefit.

"The term 'reasonable doubt' is almost incapable of any definition which will add much to what the words themselves imply." Mitchell, J., in 38 Minn. 439. The most commonly quoted definition is that of Chief Justice Shaw: "An abiding conviction to a moral certainty" (5 Cush. [Mass.] 320); but it has been held that "moral certainty is not equivalent to an absence of reasonable doubt" (47 Ala. 78). It has been defined by negation as not a vague or whimsical doubt (34 Iowa, 520), not a mere conjecture (36 Ala. 211), etc. A practical definition upheld in some jurisdictions is that it is such a doubt as would cause a man to hesitate before acting in his own most important business concerns (10 Minn. 407); but this has been disapproved (1 Dak. 452), and, in general, no affirmative equivalent has ever been given which has not been disapproved in another jurisdiction,, REASONABLE PART.

In old English law. That share of a man's goods which the law gave to his wife and children after his decease. Pitzh. Nat. Brev, 122.

See Doubt.