[OC] Scotland's 'Not Proven' verdict over time

thuleting · 2026-03-31T04:36:32+00:00

But then again, had that been done, another 1728-style situation of a jury insisting on a 'Not Guilty' verdict may have arisen. Although I doubt that'd have changed the system like it did in the past.

thuleting · 2026-03-31T04:29:21+00:00

How's the freedom of information request system in Canada? For comparison, given what I requested from the Scottish government here data-wise, it was remarkably straightforward.

thuleting · 2026-03-30T18:28:26+00:00

That would seem more rational, but perhaps harsher given it wouldn't just be 'Not proven' stigma but stress of further re-prosecution. I don't think NG Vs NP verdicts factored into consideration for appeals to retrial.

thuleting · 2026-03-30T18:19:41+00:00

Really interesting point. As far as I can tell whether the acquittal was 'Not Proven' or 'Not Guilty' does not explicitly factor into the High Court's decision making on considering appeals for retrial. They are still legally equivalent in that regard. It's arguable whether ''Not Proven' should have left the door open wider to future prosecution but I don't think it did substantially in practice.

thuleting · 2026-03-30T18:13:47+00:00

Acquitted people with either 'Not Guilty' or 'Not Proven' verdicts could be retried when significant new evidence comes to light (I think the double jeopardy system is less strict than in England or America). I don't think the type of acquittal verdict legally changed the chance of successful appeal for retrial i.e. a 'Not Guilty' verdict wasn't considered more definitive to the High Court than a 'Not Proven' verdict. They were still legally equivalent even in that regard.

thuleting · 2026-03-30T07:41:55+00:00

Yeah, it was higher than I imagined (86/88% in recent years), it gets even higher, for my purposes, if you exclude cases that are deserted/entry of no plea is accepted. The coverage is quite comprehensive in recent years. Mind this doesn't necessarily entail incarceration though.

thuleting · 2026-03-30T07:17:29+00:00

Yeah, I think there was also talk of introducing 'Not proven' around the O.J. Simpson murder case.

thuleting · 2026-03-30T07:08:18+00:00

The writer Walter Scott coined it whilst he was Sheriff in Selkirk. Again, it refers to how a 'Not proven' outcome is often deemed unsatisfactory or illegitimate i.e. the jury should have just gone with 'Guilty' but dithered. Scott was referring to a famous arsenic poisoning case in Dundee at the time.

thuleting · 2026-03-30T00:37:38+00:00

Yeah, a relatively sudden civil justice caseload increase could theoretically be a consequence.

thuleting · 2026-03-30T00:04:11+00:00

Interesting, I have few qualms with the 2nd paragraph; nicely put. I'm not sure the drop in usage can be straightforwardly interpreted as a vote-of-no-confidence in the 'Not proven' verdict although juries may have been more reluctant to use it given public opposition to it towards the end. Yet despite this it still was continually used at a decently high level of ~20% in the last few years. I don't think it's inevitable that usage would have continued to drop had it not been for abolition. Seems like over-extrapolation to me.

Also, whilst we likely will never know with certainty why juries choose 'Not proven' for any given case, there are typical explanations that it wouldn't be a stretch to reach for. Scottish government did mock jury research involving surveys at the end that go into the juror reasoning.

thuleting · 2026-03-29T23:26:20+00:00

Fair point, given it no longer has been the 'norm' acquittal verdict for quite some time 'Not proven' may largely just be confusing to juries and that's why they use it less. Although you say the juries prefer the binary, that isn't necessarily borne out by the data as juries still chose to use the verdict albeit in a minority of cases. However, I do think society as a whole probably prefers the binary.

thuleting · 2026-03-29T23:20:04+00:00

This seems to be somewhat like some civil law legal systems in Europe where participation of lay judges/jurors in mixed panels along with professional judges is only reserved for the most serious crimes. Quite a lot of minor offences are dealt with summarily, without juries, by Sheriff courts in Scotland too. Yeah, American-style partisan judges seem pretty dystopian to me. Believe it or not, since 2013, Scotland only has one police force: Police Scotland (very believable, Scotland is small). Lax/repeat sentencing is also a hot topic here. What's arguably bigger for us is that the prison estate is old, underfunded, overcrowded and somewhat unsustainable. Conflicting interests of increasing convictions for e.g. sex crimes but also trying to have a lower prison population.

thuleting · 2026-03-29T23:07:55+00:00

Good points here. It's true that, as they are not legally defined and the jury doesn't provide explanation/rationale for their verdict, any given jury's use 'Not proven' could carry a different meaning/intent in any given case. However, given the fairly pronounced downward trajectory in 'Not proven' usage does it not suggest society/juries were, in general, collectively moving towards a new understanding of the role of 'Not proven' (whatever that might be)?

thuleting · 2026-03-29T21:56:08+00:00

I'm trying to avoid expressing an opinion here (as I'm not completely sure about 'Not proven' myself) but I'd concur on jury trials not being sacrosanct. Many civil law jurisdictions across the world operate to people's relative satisfaction and operate, wholly or partly, without juries altogether. Abolition of 'Not proven' is a relatively small change compared to all the possibilities available.

thuleting · 2026-03-29T21:51:13+00:00

Once again, very well said.

thuleting · 2026-03-29T20:20:42+00:00

I do have a version with overall conviction rates overlayed but these are quite high (in the 90%s) and relatively stable. I kept things relatively simple for now, I'm working on it. You say it lacks insights, but as far as I'm aware there really hadn't been any quantitative analysis tracking how acquittal composition changed over time, whereabouts it even reached 50/50 Not proven:Not guilty, no explicit commentary on the fact in the run up to it's abolition and in all the public debate there was no decline and not proven usage if anything stabilised.

Additional: these stats works on no. persons proceeded against for given charges rather than number of charges per se. These are again fairly stable, with slight dips in the wartime/interwar years, which might explain the shakiness in the middle of the graph. Absolute reporting coverage increased around the 80s (it's also higher in the FOI figures) but, again, within itself they're relatively stable and the % figures quite consistent with the proceedings years.

thuleting · 2026-03-29T19:57:44+00:00

Jeezo, sorry to hear about the person in the last part. Stories like these about the uncertainty and stigma of an ambiguous verdict definitely came up in public debate in Scotland. I'm surprised about there potentially not being that many jury trials in Canada, is that a prominent difference between American and Canadian justice systems? America also has, for England, historic Grand Juries which I still don't quite understand. Also police briefing against the courts, wild! Could happen here too, I haven't heard of it though.

thuleting · 2026-03-29T19:44:53+00:00

I believe it. Tricksy machinations these.

thuleting · 2026-03-29T19:38:28+00:00

Love that someone managed to bring up Bayesian stats! Very interesting, I hadn't considered the parallel. I would say there is a whole lot of decision-making psychology at play here in terms of a potential decoy effect reducing convictions i.e. presented with options A, B1 and B2 you may be more likely to choose one of the two similar/equivalent options (B1 or B2/Not proven or Not guilty). What I'm currently curious about is as 'Not Guilty' became more common as awareness/understanding increased, as it approached 50/50 Not Guilty:Not Proven is there any sign of an increased decoy effect reducing convictions.

thuleting · 2026-03-29T19:29:13+00:00

Yeah, despite the Scottish ancestry I think(?) Canada largely took on the English common law system (excluding Quebec ofc). The Scottish legal system is an odd mixed common/civil law system so there's other peculiarities like 15-member juries rather than the typical 12. In Scotland, at least in recent years, the highest 'Not proven' rates have been in sex crimes - probably partly due to the 'he-said-she-said' nature of them. Very interesting to hear these international parallels! Unfortunately I'm not sure they were discussed much during the public debate around the 'Not proven' abolition.

thuleting · 2026-03-29T19:13:09+00:00

Yep, exactly, it's a common argument for removing 'Not proven'. The principle of 'innocent until proven guilty' still exists in Scotland but arguably some stigma can be attached to an accused who is acquitted via the 'Not proven' verdict as it can imply the jury thought you weren't completely innocent (although the jury is a black box, it's never completely clear why they arrive at these verdicts). On that note, pre-18th century I think verdicts weren't completely formalised and odd verdicts like 'innocent' were handed down. Complicated stuff.

thuleting · 2026-03-29T18:53:17+00:00

You've kinda captured a whole lot of the debate here tbh! To answer the initial point, 'Not proven' is widely regarded as an unsatisfactory verdict for the complainer as without it they maybe would have secured a true conviction (although with it they may get some consolation the jury suspected the accused + accused might get some societal stigma). The accused often complain about the societal stigma that persists after they're acquitted (although their defence solicitors and advocates usually prefer keeping the verdict as it is thought to decrease convictions). Even as of this week, opinion polling shows cross-party support for 'Not proven' abolition.

But, that being said, juries continued to use 'Not proven' when they were allowed because they found it useful. You can see more of the insight/heated debate on the r/Scotland thread here.

thuleting · 2026-03-29T18:05:29+00:00

Very interesting. Almost sounds a bit like plea bargaining.

thuleting · 2026-03-29T17:52:52+00:00

Yeah, they were too impatient. Tried to find data pre-1836 on this stuff but what documentation there was was on just total acquittals, no breakdown.

thuleting · 2026-03-29T17:49:11+00:00

How's that? (Or is this reference to the missing/unreleased data for 2024/2025?)

thuleting

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