I believe that Scotland still has 3 possible trial outcomes, ie "guilty", "not guilty" and "not proven".

Just to get this stuff line up, courts south of the border can have "guilty", "not guilty" and "It seemed like a good idea at the time'".

I still think a verdict of "guilty as weasel in a hen house" should be on the books, but that's just my opinion.
-- not_morrison_rm, May 26 2018

As in many countries, in fact there are just two verdicts in the UK; "Guilty", and "I am very wealthy and have influential friends".
-- 8th of 7, May 26 2018


'We the jury got to the truth and decided...', ' We the jury decided..' and 'Sorry, the court got us, the jury, nowhere near the truth'.
-- wjt, May 26 2018


"vegetarian weasel"
-- FlyingToaster, May 26 2018


^ (my) Pedant alert "Whoop whoop whoop" all doors go on into lockdown etc.

"Differences Between Vegan and Vegetarian. ... Some vegetarians also exclude dairy, some don't, and some may consume eggs."

Ergo, even a vegetarian weasel might eat the eggs, so committing poultrycide..
-- not_morrison_rm, May 27 2018


I believe that the UK government have gone quite a long way down the road to standardising trial outcomes along the lines of 8th's description.

The legal aid program has been so starved of resources in the last decade that the few remaining legal aid funded defense lawyers barely have enough time to learn their clients name or what it is they are supposed to have done, or even where & when the trial is being held in many instances, before they have to move on to the next case.

As to the idea, I am against it. It is up to the state to prove that you have committed a crime. If they can't manage that one, simple thing then they shouldn't have taken it to trial in the first place & wasted taxpayers money.

Thinking about that a bit more, I wonder if we can pep up the entertainment & excitement value of the criminal justice system by having trials where the outcome is always that somebody is guilty of something & gets shipped off to prison to do 10 years hard labour. Either the defendant was guilty of the crime or the prosecution was guilty of incompetence &/or wasting the nations resources. That should make them nice & 'edgy'!
-- DrBob, May 29 2018



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