Editing Not proven (section)

===Reintroduction of "not guilty"===
In 1728, in the trial of [[Carnegie of Finhaven]] for the [[murder]] of the [[Charles Lyon, 6th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne|Earl of Strathmore]], the defence lawyer ([[Robert Dundas, of Arniston, the elder|Robert Dundas]]) persuaded a jury to reassert its ancient right of acquitting, of finding an accused "not guilty", in spite of the facts being proven. The law required the jury merely to look at the facts and pass a verdict of "proven" or "not proven" depending on whether they believed the evidence proved that the accused had killed the Earl. Carnegie had undoubtedly killed the Earl, but had also clearly not intended to do so. If the jury brought in a "proven" verdict they would in effect constrain the judge to find Carnegie guilty of murder, for which the punishment was [[hanging]]. To avert this outcome, the jury asserted what it believed to be their "ancient right" to judge the whole case and not just the facts, and brought in the verdict of "not guilty".

The reintroduction of the "not guilty" verdict was part of a wider movement during the 17th and 18th century which saw a gradual increase in the power of juries,{{citation needed|date=December 2021}} such as the trial of [[William Penn]] in 1670, in which an English jury first gained the right to pass a verdict contrary to the law (known as [[jury nullification]]), and the trial of [[John Peter Zenger]] in New York in 1735 in which jury nullification is credited with establishing [[Freedom of the press in the United States|freedom of the press]] as a firm right in what became the United States. Legal academic Ian Willock argues that the 1728 case was "of great significance in calling a halt to a process of attrition which might have led to the total extinction of the criminal jury".<ref name="sln" />

Although jurors continued to use both "not guilty" and "not proven" after 1728, jurors tended to favour the "not guilty" verdict over the "not proven" and the interpretation changed.{{citation needed|date=October 2022}}