That’s a good idea for getting out of jury duty –the “sliding scale of reaosnable doubt”. The same standard of proof applies to all criminal cases — reasonable doubt — and must be applied uniformly from the peskiest misdemeaor to the most heinous felony (although there is this potential death penalty standard that is out there, “lingering doubt”, but set that aberrant concept aside because it’s unlikely to ever come up and only confuses a pretty confusing issue anyway)… if you think reasonable doubt means something different in different cases, then you cannot follow the law and cannot follow your oath and therefore cannot serve as a juror. Of course, everyone internally adjusts their reasonable doubt tolerance based ont he nature of the charges, even though this is impermissible. Would you really consider “reasonable doubt’ to mean the same thing in a torture/child molest murder as you would in a marijuana possession case? Would you apply it in theexact same way. or would you tend to err on the side of the conviction on bad facts?
