Our kindly, avuncular judge was at some pains to emphasize both that this was a significant bar for the prosecution to clear, and that "reasonable doubt" was distinct and, indeed, at some distance from "beyond the shadow of a doubt."

All of us believed that P had been wrongly jumped by the police, and most of us were, I think, on that basis reluctant to see that official incompetence as it were vindicated by a conviction, but the room explicitly recognized this emotional bias, and worked hard to set it aside. In a way it was almost as though we were conscientiously applying a kind of "reasonable doubt" standard to our reservations about the prosecution's case. I think "the People" got their money's worth from a forceful and articulate advocate, and that the jury gave him a respectful and considered hearing.

Notwithstanding the sundry inconveniences, I found it an edifying five days.

cordially,