[bilbo0s]

>"whether X did Y (e.g. whether John punched Jack)" is not based on opinion. There's a universal truth there, either John did or he didn't

I'm pretty sure you just conflated "truth" with fact. John punching Jack. Or John not punching Jack. Is one of the facts of the situation. At least, police and criminal courts would call it one of the facts. They certainly wouldn't call it one of the "truths".

[coldtea]

There's no real dichotomy, it's precisely a reporting of a fact which can be either true or false -- either a direct reporting of a fact can be that, or a guess on what the facts are (speculation).

An opinion in the sense of a value judgement (moral statements, political statements, etc) can't be true or false. One can agree with it or not. At worst it can be inconsistent with its premises (wrongly arrived).

[wcarey]

Fascinatingly, a verdict means “a speaking of the truth”. Courts at least, consider the aim of the jury to speak the truth. So whether John did punch Jack would be an element of the truth of the matter being adjudicated.

[bilbo0s]

Facts and beliefs are elements of truth.

That doesn't make fact equivalent to truth, any more than it makes belief equivalent to truth. (Or, indeed, anymore than it makes belief equivalent to fact.)

Juries often issue “a speaking of the truth” inconsistent with fact. (Even inconsistent with facts as presented.) That's what the Innocence Project is all about, they exist precisely because of the difference between these adjudicated "truths" and real world facts.

[coldtea]

>Juries often issue “a speaking of the truth” inconsistent with fact.

That's because they're doing speculation on facts - and can get them wrong.

That they call it "a speaking of the truth" doesn't means it's epistemologically true or that they think it is true and only true with no element of error (any judge will admit to that).

It just conveys their wish and effort for it to be true. Calling a verdict merely: "What we think is true" doesn't have the same ring to it, nor would be as respected by the public as the word of the law. So there's that.

But a verdict, at least the part that is based on a statement of facts (X killed Y), is absolutely either true or false (regardless of whatever we know it or not to be such -- only one set of events transpired in the real world, either X killed Y or he didn't).

Whether e.g. some moral judgement is neither true nor false - it depends on a system of beliefs and viewpoints, regardless of what somebody did in the world.

E.g. "you are a sinner because you wear a mini-skirt". Well, for those who don't believe in such a moral, no, you're not.