Zefram wrote:
Ed Murphy wrote:
I would use "UNKNOWN" for this.
Mm. I think "UNPROVEN" is more descriptive. I'm influenced by the
"unproven" verdict in Scottish criminal law. Why do you prefer "UNKNOWN"?
Because it's neutral. "Unproven" carries connotations of Godelian
incompleteness, or perhaps "the preponderance of the evidence points
to TRUE but it's not beyond a reasonable doubt". (Compare "unrefuted".)
And "NOT A CRIME" for this.
That's the semantic, certainly, but I tried to make each of the
judgements be a description that could be applied to the defendant.
Thus "the defendant is GUILTY", "the defendant is EXCUSED", and so on.
(I failed to do that for "UNPROVEN", though.) I spent ages on Wikipedia
trying to find the RL legal term for "alleged conduct is not criminal",
but couldn't find one: Wikipedia doesn't list it as an available plea
or defence. Which could be quite scary if one were put in the dock on
a charge of having long hair.
In practice, it seems to get lumped in under "dismiss".
