Caveat: IANAL, I am ignorant of the law, however, I know a little about statistics and testing hypotheses. On one hand: Suppose we are confronted with making a decision based on limited data; most real world data is incomplete. Consider, for example, the charge that Ted murdered Jack Our legal system doesn’t require that jurors be omniscient. It only requires that jurors begin by assuming that Ted is Innocent until Proven Guilty . In more precise language, jurors should begin with the hypothesis that Ted is not guilty as opposed to the alternative that Ted is guilty . Jack is guilty is not a reasonable alternative hypothesis. We do not test whether Ted is innocent versus Ted is not innocent . If the reason for this is not immediately obvious, I hope it soon will be. The jurors examine the presented evidence, and ideally without bias, evaluate the accumulation of evidence and arguments. If the accumulated arguments and evidence presented by the prosecution persuades the jury