legal-terms
What, if any, is the legal meaning of the term &quot;benefit of the doubt?&quot;
<p>One instance that I am familiar with is &quot;innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.&quot; So if you think that someone is &quot;probably&quot; guilty, but have a &quot;reasonable doubt&quot; covering, say 5%-10% of possible outcomes, my understanding is that you're supposed be give the defendant the &quot;benefit of the doubt&quot; and vote to acquit.</p>
<p>In a civil case, where the burden of proof is &quot;preponderance of evidence,&quot; the standard of proof is more like 50-50. In this case, you might give someone the benefit of the doubt if you felt that that party was 50% or more in the right.</p>
<p>So is &quot;benefit of the doubt&quot; tied to a quantitative measure or probability? That the party receives the benefit of a very small doubt in the criminal case, and &quot;50%&quot; in the civil case?</p>

<p>Normally, the term &quot;benefit of the doubt&quot;, if it was used, would mean that ambiguities should be resolved in favor of the person entitled to it. This could be applied to contract interpretation or to statutory interpretation. Here is an example:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When dealing with restrictions on campaign spending and speech, a
court's construction must “give the benefit of the doubt to speech,
not censorship. The First Amendment's command that ‘Congress shall
make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech’ demands at least
that.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Colorado Educ. Ass'n v. Rutt</em>, 184 P.3d 65, 75–76 (Colo. 2008) (ultimately holding that union activities to organize volunteers to walk precincts with a political candidate did not constitute a &quot;campaign expenditure&quot; of a union within the meaning of a state law restriction campaign contributions by unions).</p>

<p>&quot;The benefit of the doubt&quot; describes who gets the benefit in the case where there is doubt. It does not describe in any way what qualifies as &quot;doubt&quot;. In some cases, a preponderance of evidence is all that's needed for there to be &quot;no&quot; doubt, while in others, it requires a conclusion to be reached &quot;beyond a reasonable doubt&quot; or &quot;beyond a shadow of a doubt&quot;. These phrases are related to the certainty (or in some way, probability) of doubt. But in any case, when there is doubt (at whatever specified level of uncertainty), the benefit of the doubt goes to the accused (in systems where you are innocent until proven guilty).</p>
<p>I'll also note that even though this term itself is unrelated to probabilities, the legal standards of proof also do not have fixed probability values that can be compared against. So, while a &quot;preponderance of evidence&quot; allows for a higher level of uncertainty than &quot;beyond a reasonable doubt&quot;, there is no set probability level that distinguishes one from another.</p>
