Your views

I AM a retired solicitor who has never practised in the criminal courts but who nonetheless has always been keenly interested in criminal law and procedure.

Ever since my student days, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I have never begun to understand the almost universal support for the "not proven" verdict by judges, sheriffs and the leading practitioners at the Scottish bar, which has been unwavering for all these years and is only now becoming a subject of active debate. To myself (and, I suspect, a majority of civil practitioners and the public) "not proven" is a nonsense as its clear implication is the jury believes the accused is guilty as Hell but the Crown cannot prove their case beyond reasonable doubt.

In these circumstances the only possible verdict is not guilty and, while that may result in the odd acquittal of a person who on the balance of probabilities is guilty as charged, to my mind that is better than an innocent person being branded as probably guilty for the rest of their life.

The strongest argument in favour of retention is, in Scotland, an accused person can be convicted by an eight to seven majority of jurors. But that rule also is not cast in stone and personally I see no reason why we need to have a 15-strong jury north of the Border when the English seem to manage perfectly well with 12. At the risk of being branded a treacherous Anglophile, I am strongly of the opinion that we should copy the English system and have only two verdicts, "guilty" or "not guilty" (or "proven" and "not proven"), juries should number 12 and a verdict may be given by a majority of not less than ten.

John McNeil

Livingston

IN THE light of renewed interest in the "not proven" verdict, and Dr McLachlan's article on the subject (3 April), it is of real public importance to analyse accurately the true meaning of the possible verdicts in a criminal trial in Scotland.

Most practitioners agree the survival in our system of three verdicts is an anachronism. There is little discontent with the "guilty" verdict. The problem is that the verdicts "not guilty" and "not proven" have exactly the same effect in law: the accused must be acquitted and cannot be brought to trial again on the same charge. It is unnecessary and confusing to have two acquittal verdicts. Some would like to see the "not proven" verdict removed. Others, including myself, believe the "not guilty" verdict is the more difficult to justify.

The mistake commonly made by those who would retain the "not guilty" verdict is to suppose that the so-called presumption of innocence means logically that those who are not proved to be guilty are entitled to a declaration from the jury that they are innocent/not guilty. The "presumption of innocence" is, however, only an imperfect and misleading way of expressing a clear and simple legal rule. The rule is that, when criminal proceedings begin, no person who is accused, within those proceedings, of the relevant crime can be convicted of that crime unless, in a trial, the prosecutor proves his guilt beyond reasonable doubt. If the prosecutor fails to do so, then the rule/presumption applies and the accused must be acquitted. The "presumption" comes into existence only when the criminal proceedings start; it ends when the proceedings end. It applies only within the context of the proceedings.

The short point is an accused who is not proved to be guilty must be acquitted. The simple way to solve any confusion resulting from the present three verdicts is for the judges to ask the jury if the prosecution case has been proved. If they answer, yes then the judge should pronounce the accused guilty. If they answer "no", then the judge should acquit him.

Lord McCluskey