beyond a reasonable doubt

[Steven Belknap <sbelknap@UIC.EDU>]

jorge:
> >>But wouldn't it be better to know by {le nu racli birti} = "being
>>>rationally certain", rather than by >rationally doubting?
>>
>>Hmm. I don't think <le nu racli birti> is quite right, as I am trying to
>>translate "beyond a reasonable doubt", the standard of American
>>jurisprudence in a criminal trial. The question the jury must answer is,
>>"Is there a reasonable doubt?" and not "Is there reasonable certainty?"
>
>If you don't think those two are exclusive, then how about "le nu racli
>nalsenpi" = "reasonable non-doubt".

This would work if there were no cultural context, but it seems to me that
"beyond a reasonable doubt" is not adequately translated by <le nu racli
nalsenpi>, as I am trying to translate the cultural context of American
criminal jurisprudence, which differs from French jurisprudence, for
example. There is also a separate criteria for American civil trials:
"proponderance of the evidence"

>The trouble with "beyond" is that it depends on where you start from.
>If you start from uncertainty, then getting past the point of reasonable
>doubt means getting to the side of certainty. But if you start from
>certainty, then passing the point of reasonable doubt means getting
>to the side of uncertainty. So you could be beyond a reasonable
>doubt if you had lots of doubts. Maybe something like: {le nu ragve
>le ka racli senpi kei le ka senpi} = "being beyond reasonably doubtful
>starting from being doubtful".

The standard in an American criminal trial is that the defendant is
"innocent until proven guilty" So I would think you would start with an
assumption of innocence, you then cross over into possible guilt, probable
guilt, and guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. When you reach guilt beyond a
reasonable doubt, you have reached the criterion for conviction. So thats
the vector.

>
>> Also, you are right that I need an abstractor, but <nu> doesn't
>>seem right, as "beyond a reasonable doubt" is not an event.
>
>It can be a nu, a state in this case. But I don't know whether
>it makes sense that events are epistemologies.
>
>>It seems to me
>>that "beyond a reasonable doubt" implies that the evidence is being weighed
>>on a scale (the scales of justice), and found to surpass a threshold, which
>>seems rather like a numerical quantity:
>>
>><.i mi ja'a xipa djuno le du'u la xorxes kau porpi gasnu le rulja'o kei fo
>>le za'u ni racli senpi>
>
>That's grammatical, but I'm not getting into the discussion of what
>{ni} means again. :)

Understood. It is in the grammer, however.

>{le za'u ni} would seem to be "a positive number
>of amounts", I think you need {le piza'u ni} for "a positive amount".
>But do you really want "a positive amount of rational doubting" as the
>epistemology?

You're right, thats not quite what I mean. It should be something like:

"Starting from a presumption of innocence we the jury were convinced beyond
a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty."

 A lot of this does not need to be explicit, as it is culturally implicit;
"beyond a reasonable doubt" is the short form for this in English. That's
why I though <za'u> might be apropos, but then <ni> must be used instead of
<nu>, as it doesn't make sense to be "more than" an event.

-Steven

Steven Belknap, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Medicine
University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria