Modern lawyers will recognize here a “golden thread” speech (“Throughout the web of the English Criminal Law one golden thread is always to be seen, that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner’s guilt. . . . If, at the end of and on the whole of the case, there is a reasonable doubt . . . the prisoner is entitled to an acquittal”)10—that is, a general purpose appeal to the burden of proof that the defendant uses as a last resort.
