How does a modern jury unshackle itself from gossip? Keli Lane is appealing against her conviction of murdering her newborn baby Tegan. OPINION: I've been asked hundreds of times - by friends, colleagues, people who know that I know her. Did she do it? Some are genuinely curious; others want to corroborate their own view; most just see me as a keyhole through which they can glimpse briefly with their own eyes that most compelling and repellent of creatures - the "mother who killed her child." They fascinate us, don't they, these women with their inscrutable faces and their seeming ability to go against the natural order and snuff out that to which they've given life. Kathleen Folbigg, Keli Lane. We lock in our verdicts like we're players in some murder game show - Jail of the Century, Wheel of Misfortune - but why? Because of moral panic? Because we sleep easier believing we're right? All week talk has swirled round Kathleen Folbigg - currently serving a 30-year sentence for killing her four children - after a 60 Minutes investigation raised the possibility of her innocence. This week Keli Lane will appeal against her conviction of murdering her newborn baby Tegan. I have known Keli Lane for more than a decade: her parents are my neighbours; my children play with her daughter; we regularly battled it out in the parents' race at swim club (she always beat me). I have been in her home and she has been in mine. She's always been terrific fun; one of the few parents I know who didn't outsource birthday parties but organised the games herself. "You little duffer," she'd call my youngest as she taught her to swim. I could tell you of the Keli I know. But none of that matters. What I think about Keli, the incredulity of her past versus the mother I know her to be, her parents - good people with whom I regularly leave my children - is largely irrelevant. Because when people's lives are at stake it's not our gut or our guesses or even the showmanship of a good lawyer that matters but whether there is reasonable doubt the accused committed the crime. Keli's case - like Lindy Chamberlain's - who was eventually acquitted - had already gone through the sieve of public opinion when it came to court; you could see the weight of the case etched into the faces of the jurors as they listened to month after month of evidence through the winter and spring of 2010. Even the judge, Justice Anthony Whealy - presiding at the axis where ancient jurisprudence butts social media saturation - had to remind them that "prejudice, moral judgments, bias, condemnation of other people's behaviour, dislike of people, have no place in a court of law." Retiring last year he revealed his doubts about the conviction: "I wasn't, for myself, convinced that the Crown had proved its case. It wasn't my call, it was the jury's call, so my task was to try and make sure that the jury gave the woman a fair trial. A fair trial. We don't have great form for that, do we. All these years after the ignorance and supposition that led to the lesson that was the Chamberlain case I'd venture that we're greater self-appointed crime busters than ever. We like to think we know. In the half-hour that 60 Minutes called on viewers to vote "yes" or "no" on whether Folbigg was wrongly convicted, 3581 hit their buzzers (46 per cent believe she was). The issue is not that we have opinions - I interviewed Lindy Chamberlain several years ago and was transfixed by the intensity of her eyes - but the wholesale broadcast of them. How does a modern jury unshackle itself from years of conjecture and gossip, particularly when it's so much more engaging than the complex, mazelike circumstantial evidence at the heart of cases like Lane's, Chamberlain's? Equally, as cases rely on more expert witnesses - on science, forensics, psychology - and evidence is frequently presented then withdrawn on the seesaw of admissibility, you have to question whether our peers are adequate judges of guilt. The former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery has advocated judge-alone trials: "If I were facing trial and I were not guilty ... I'd prefer the judge rather than risk that a jury could get it wrong." Intriguingly, even Lane's boyfriend Patrick Cogan directs the public to the law when questioned in Woman's Day as to why people should believe her. "They shouldn't," he tells the magazine. They should have a look at the evidence that is provided and come to their own conclusion. Some decisions should be left to the people best equipped to make them. The rest of us - in lieu of confusing real life for crime fiction - may have to live with the discomfort of not knowing. We'd do well to heed the words of Nick Waterlow OAM, the renowned art curator stabbed to death by his schizophrenic son Anthony in 2009. After his death Nick's partner Juliet Darling found an entry in the notepad he kept beside the bed. Inside was a strangely beautiful last will and testament. Among the seven points he encouraged: "an ability to be uncertain."