Editing Not proven (section)

==Use in other jurisdictions==

In general, the Scottish verdict has not been permanently adopted outside its home country, but it was sometimes used in [[colonial Canada]], especially by some judges in southwestern [[Ontario]]{{Citation needed|date=January 2012}}.

Its most famous use in the United States came when [[United States Senate|Senator]] [[Arlen Specter]] tried to vote "not proven" on the two articles of [[impeachment of Bill Clinton]]<ref name="arlen">{{cite web |author=Specter, Arlen |title=Sen. Specter's closed-door impeachment statement |date=12 February 1999|url=http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/02/12/senate.statements/specter.html |publisher=CNN|access-date=2008-03-13 |quote=My position in the matter is that the case has not been proved. I have gone back to Scottish law where there are three verdicts: guilty, not guilty, and not proved. I am not prepared to say on this record that President Clinton is not guilty. But I am certainly not prepared to say that he is guilty. There are precedents for a Senator voting present. I hope that I will be accorded the opportunity to vote not proved in this case. [...] But on this record, the proofs are not present. Juries in criminal cases under the laws of Scotland have three possible verdicts: guilty, not guilty, not proven. Given the option in this trial, I suspect that many Senators would choose 'not proven' instead of 'not guilty'. That is my verdict: not proven. The President has dodged perjury by calculated evasion and poor interrogation. Obstruction of justice fails by gaps in the proofs. }}</ref> (his votes were recorded as "not guilty"<ref name="In3V">{{cite journal | ssrn = 1339222|last=Bray |first=Samuel |year=2005 |title=Not Proven: Introducing a Third Verdict |journal=University of Chicago Law Review |volume=72 |issue=4 |pages=1299–1329}}</ref>) and when, at the [[O. J. Simpson murder case]], various reformers, including Fred Goldman, [[Ron Goldman]]'s father, pushed for a change to "not proven" because of what they felt was an incorrect [[presumption of innocence]] on the part of Simpson.

The verdict is often referenced in US cases where the jury is obliged to find the state has not proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt, but there is widespread feeling that the defendant does not deserve the exoneration of a "not guilty" verdict. A popular saying about the "not proven" verdict is that it means "not guilty, but don't do it again".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/oj/highlights/dershowitz.html|title=Readings And Links – Is The Criminal Trial A Search For Truth? &#124; The O. J. Verdict &#124; FRONTLINE &#124; PBS|publisher=PBS}}</ref>

In 2005, a proposal was made in the ''[[University of Chicago Law Review]]'' to introduce the not proven verdict into the United States.<ref name="In3V"/>