Doubt in Favour of the Defendant, Guilty Beyond Reasonable Doubt doubt, you will acquit him.”215 Moreover, when the verdict was read out, it stated that the accused “ha[d] been convicted, upon evidence which excludes all possibility of doubt….”216 These cases illustrate that it is difficult to discern any consistently applied or defined standard of proof. Not all of The Old Bailey Sessions Papers contain the full verbatim transcripts.217 Different judges seemed to formulate the degree of proof differently. Although judges used reasonable doubt language in the jury instructions, the various formulations are used inconsistently. The reasonable doubt standard of proof does not appear to have crystallized as a standard by the late eighteenth century. Reasonable Doubt in Treatises In the Anglo-Saxon world, the reasonable doubt language appeared not only in jury instructions but also in treatises. In the eighteenth century, legal treatises were so influential that they “had replaced justice of the peace manuals as authoritative texts.”218 The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’ common law treatises on evidence built upon the foundations of the Age of Reason philosophers.219 For instance, one of the first treatises on evidence, The Law of Evidence220 (first published in 1754) by Sir Geoffrey Gilbert (1674 – 1726) was influenced by Locke’s ideas of degrees of probability.221 Sir Gilbert also refers to Wilkins’ levels of certainty.222 According to Sir Gilbert, assessment of probability required careful consideration of the witness’s credibility. If the witness was credible, there was no reason to doubt his statements.223 He explains that verdicts do not possess absolute certainty, but trials based upon credible witnesses proceed to verdicts that the jury has no reason to doubt.224 Shapiro argues that Gilbert’s use of Locke’s formulation, as well as the language used in the trials of the eighteenth century, suggests that the “beyond reasonable doubt rule was first applied only to direct testimony and was not initially applied to circumstantial evidence.”225 Trial of Joseph Rickards, The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, Ref: T17860222-1 (emphasis added). Trial of Joseph Rickards, The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, Ref: T17860222-1 (emphasis added). 217 See Langbein, Adversary Criminal Trial, p. 264-65, discussing the inconsistencies in the jury instructions of this period. 218 Shapiro, Doubt, p. 140. 219 Shapiro, Doubt, p. 26. 220 Geoffrey Gilbert, The Law of Evidence (Joseph Crukshank, 1805) (hereinafter “Gilbert”). His treatise was composed before 1726, the year of his death. Editions appeared in 1756, 1760, 1761, 1764, 1769, 1777, 1788, 1790, 1791-1794, 1795-1797, 1801. Volume 2 of the 1791 edition is available at https://archive.org/ details/lawevidence00gilgoog (last accessed 14 April 2016). 221 Gilbert, p. 1-2. 222 Gilbert, p. 1-3. 223 Gilbert, p. 1-4. 224 Gilbert, p. 2-4. 225 Shapiro, Doubt, p. 26. 215 216 46