Legalese 101
It’s a murder trial and the jurors need to know the difference between homicide and murder and what beyond a reasonable doubt means. It’s also the defense and the prosecutor’s chance to get acquainted with the potential jury line-up before them and pick out the ones they feel may not be competent to try a first-degree murder case.
Gene Melpass (still checking on the spelling of his name,) who was filling in for assistant state attorney Steve Houchin, proceeded to explain the difference to the 14 who had been summoned as potential jurors.
“What is a homicide,” they were asked. A murder, one replied. Death under questionable circumstances, another said.
It turns out that a homicide is a killing, and not all homicides are murders. A homicide is a muder when the killing is unlawful.
Then Melpass got down to explain what presumption of innocence meant. Presumed inccocent until guilty. But did the jurors have to believe beyond a “shadow of doubt” that the defendant was guilty? Turns out that’s the wrong answer. It’s a reasonable doubt, not a shadow of doubt, they were told. Jurors also learned that a man could be considered not guilty but didn’t necessarily have to be innocent/ “Not guilty means that the state couldn’t prove it, it does not mean that he did not do it,” Melpass added.
