C O M P A R AT I V E S T U D Y Interestingly, regarding the definition of reasonable doubt, Wigmore observes that: [W]hen anything more than a simple caution and a brief definition is given, the matter tends to become one of mere words, and the actual effect upon the jury, instead of being enlightenment, is rather confusion, or, at the least, a continued incomprehension. In practice, these detailed amplifications of the [reasonable doubt] doctrine have usually degenerated into a mere tool for counsel who desire to entrap an unwary judge into forgetfulness of some obscure precedent, or to save a cause for a new trial by quibbling, on appeal, over the verbal propriety of a form of words uttered or declined to be uttered by the judge…. The effort to perpetuate and develop these unserviceable definitions is a useless one and serves to-day chiefly to aid the purposes of the tactician. It should be wholly abandoned.242 NAPOLEONIC PERIOD The progressive ideas of the Enlightenment period could finally find a practical implementation on the Continent as well, through the French Revolution in 1789. During the revolutionary period the inquisitorial process, based on the presumption of guilt, was abolished and replaced by an accusatorial system modeled after the English procedure. The AngloSaxon legal system was so different from the one of the Ancien Regime that it naturally attracted the attention of the Enlightenment thinkers on the Continent, determined to find an alternative model of trial. Therefore, it was obvious for the French jurists to look towards Great Britain in search of a different model of criminal proceedings and that the choice was for an accusatorial system. Although, as it has been shown above, the principle of presumption of innocence, which is strictly linked to the principle of in dubio pro reo, had been affirmed for the first time by the Roman jurisprudence, it was only with the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen (Declaration of the rights of man and citizen), which derived from the revolution, that it became a rule of positive law. Article 9 of the Declaration stated the following: “Any man being presumed innocent until he is declared culpable, if it is judged indispensable to arrest him, any rigor which would not be necessary for the securing of his person must be severely reprimanded by the law”. By that, the Enlightenment condemned the practice of utilizing torture in the criminal proceedings, since it would be unfair to torment a citizen who could be innocent and since the accused had to be considered innocent unless the crime was proven with certainty. 242 Wigmore, § 2497. 49