Recent sociological research and socio-political debates about socioeconomic inequality and social divisions urge legal scholars, criminologists, policy makers and practitioners to have a renewed discussion about the role of socioeconomic status of suspects and offenders in judicial decisions. If social divisions in Dutch society are deepening, we need to look anew at the possibility that injustices of the social structure affect legal rights and decisions about prosecution, sentencing and probation. This article intends to offer various starting points for debate and research.

This article presents how criminal court handle with stories alternative to the accusative story. By analysing verdicts it is showed that reasonable doubt is not merely caused by the simple possibility of an alternative scenario. Under condition of sufficient evidence for conviction criminal courts will reject alternative stories which are without likely indications as well as unusual stories presented in an tardy stadium of law. Therefor it is important for participants in law to focus on the (lack of) support and the (im)plausiblity of alternative stories, instead of (requesting) infinite search for discriminative evidence in merely suggested stories.