I'm slightly puzzled, CET, as to why you think "shadow" cannot be as well defined as "reasonable"? Let's face it, "reasonable" itself is a pretty woolly definition. I accept that there may be no will to do so, but that doesn't make it impossible. "Shadow" isn't certainty. "Reasonable", to me, says I think he's guilty, but it's possible for there to be evidence that I don't know about (and therefore can't assess) that might change my view of the case. "Shadow" goes well beyond that, but isn't necessarily absolute certainty. There are very few absolutes, probably none, in the human world.

On your checklist would be things such as weight of forensic evidence (fingerprints on the murder weapon, DNA, etc), independent eye-witness testimony, motive established, obviously fabricated defence from the accused (i.e. glaring inconsistencies), no reason to question police behaviour, and so on. Finally, no questions about the quality of the legal defence. An argument I've often seen in respect of American death row cases is that poor prisoners get rubbish lawyers (as far as I recall OJ got off because his lawyers went ad hominem against the police; not because they actually bothered to disprove the case). If enough of those boxes get ticked...

There are very many cases where, despite it being on the statute book, CP should never be an option. Equally, and examples already given, there are cases where it should be. An option, you'll note; always an option, never a guaranteed outcome. Incidentally, as far as I'm concerned, sentencing is solely a matter for the judge; no jury of amateurs should ever have a say in the matter.

I agree, you can't ever design a watertight system; I already said as much; but why expect one? People get killed every year because of mechanical failures in cars and other equipment. It's impossible to design a perfect machine, but we still design & sell machinery. There comes a point where the balance of probability says it's as safe as it can be made & safe enough that it's not unreasonable to make it available. I think the West could do that with CP now. Obviously you still don't, which is fair enough!

Out of curiosity, are you morally against CP, as Bobert, or are you just not satisfied that the risk of a wrong sentence is sufficently low? For my part, Bob, whilst I generally have a great deal of respect for your views even though I often find myself disagreeing with them, I have to say that I dislike moral arguments. Your morals are not my morals, and what gives you the right to define MY life by YOUR morals? We're potentially into "killing because I insulted your holy book" territory with that way of thinking. I accept that you will always say that killing is wrong, whatever the circumstances, but do you have a rational, rather than a moral, argument as to why?