Book Review: The Origins of Reasonable Doubt - Theological Roots of the Criminal Trial by James Q. Whitman

Abstract:     
In Woolmington v. DPP [1935] A.C. 426 (at 481), Lord Sankey famously referred to the doctrine that requires the prosecution to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt as "the golden thread" that "runs throughout the web of English Criminal Law". This doctrine is by no means peculiar to England; "proof beyond reasonable doubt" is the standard of proof universally adopted in the common law world, hailed by the Privy Council as "fundamental to the administration of justice" in Yuvajay v. PP [1970] A.C. 913 (at 921) and by V.K. Rajah J.A. as a "bedrock principle [which is] sacrosanct in our criminal justice system" in Sakthivel Punithavathi v. PP [2007] SGHC 54, [2007] 2 S.L.R. 983 (at para. 78).

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