Watson Murder Case - Discussion

[ItsBruce]

The matching tape and rope, is circumstantial evidence. Now, given the open garage and lack of an eye witness, it is unlikely a jury will find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But, I acknowledge it is possible.

However, would you rather have a conviction based on an eye witness who says he saw you do it? Witnesses lie. Either they are intentionally lying. Or they are mistaken. Next time you see someone you think you know, but don't, ask yourself how you could have made such a misidentification.

I recently had to identify a suspect from six pictures. The someone is someone I spent a number of hours with over the course of a few weeks. I actually had trouble picking him out because the other pictures were of very similar people. Were I not as observant as I am and if my memory was not as good, I could have identified the wrong person. So much for eye witnesses.

I know a young man who is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. He was convicted of 4 counts of first degree murder while lying in wait. Pretty rough stuff. The whole conviction turned on a so-called eye witness who testified against him. There is a good argument that she could not have seen his face if he was where she said he was and she was where she said she was. And, the two were not strangers, they affiliated with rival gangs.

Personally, I have trouble with believing her. She certainly had an incentive to lie. But the young man is in prison for life. The jury must have believed her.

Would you rather be convicted based on what a person who is not necessarily truthful says or what the scientific evidence says. BTW: Scientific evidence is nearly always circumstantial evidence.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

I would rather not be convicted of anything but there have too many people in prison who have been proven innocent by scientific evidence for me to want to trust either witnesses who may or may not be honest/unbiased/observent or scientific evidence.. we need both.. why try to make it an either or thing?

 

[livinoz]

The matching tape and rope, is circumstantial evidence. Now, given the open garage and lack of an eye witness, it is unlikely a jury will find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But, I acknowledge it is possible.

However, would you rather have a conviction based on an eye witness who says he saw you do it? Witnesses lie. Either they are intentionally lying. Or they are mistaken. Next time you see someone you think you know, but don't, ask yourself how you could have made such a misidentification.

I recently had to identify a suspect from six pictures. The someone is someone I spent a number of hours with over the course of a few weeks. I actually had trouble picking him out because the other pictures were of very similar people. Were I not as observant as I am and if my memory was not as good, I could have identified the wrong person. So much for eye witnesses.

I know a young man who is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. He was convicted of 4 counts of first degree murder while lying in wait. Pretty rough stuff. The whole conviction turned on a so-called eye witness who testified against him. There is a good argument that she could not have seen his face if he was where she said he was and she was where she said she was. And, the two were not strangers, they affiliated with rival gangs.

Personally, I have trouble with believing her. She certainly had an incentive to lie. But the young man is in prison for life. The jury must have believed her.

Would you rather be convicted based on what a person who is not necessarily truthful says or what the scientific evidence says. BTW: Scientific evidence is nearly always circumstantial evidence.

I don't quite understand Bruce. Is DNA evidence also circumstantial then? Haven't people been found not guilty via that means? Could you explain more please.

 

[Under-Exposed]

Liv,
Circumstantial evidence is usually contrasted with “direct evidence” — a term which is employed in two senses. In its first sense “direct evidence” is testimony, as contrasted with hearsay, and may therefore be defined as an assertion made by a witness in court offered as proof of the truth of any fact asserted by the witness, including the witness's own mental or physical state at a given time. In its second sense, “direct evidence” means a witness's statement that the witness perceived a fact in issue with one of the five senses, or was in a particular mental or physical state if that is in issue; and the contrast is with circumstantial evidence. When someone swears to having seen an alleged murderer carrying a blood-stained knife, the evidence is direct in the first sense, but not in the second.

No useful purpose is served by comparing the merits of direct and circumstantial evidence. Although, in legal parlance, circumstantial evidence does not mean a detailed account of what happened (as it formerly did in popular speech), the phrase retains an important element of its original meaning when used by lawyers, because circumstantial evidence derives its main force from the fact that it usually consists of a number of items pointing to the same conclusion. The blood on the accused's knife may not be of much significance, but additional facts, such as the accused's animosity towards the deceased, benefits to be derived by the accused from the death of the deceased, and the accused's efforts to conceal the knife may give it a very damning complexion.
Evidentiary facts may be proved by testimony, admissible hearsay, documents, things and other evidentiary facts. An example of the proof of one such fact by another is afforded by the statement of a witness at a trial for murder that the witness saw blood on the accused's coat pocket, in which the accused's knife was found. The jury is asked, first, to decide that the witness is telling the truth; secondly, to infer that the blood on the pocket came from the knife, and finally to infer that the blood was on the knife because the accused stabbed the deceased with that weapon. This process might be prolonged still further, but as the number of steps which have to be taken from the first evidentiary fact to the ultimate inference of a fact in issue increases, the weaker does that evidentiary fact become as a means of proving the matter, and the greater is the increase in the number of opportunities of adducing evidence in favour of a contrary conclusion.
A witness testifies, often with the aid of photographs, to having taken the fingerprints of the accused and found them to be identical with those on some object with which the case is concerned. This is very strong retrospectant circumstantial evidence, where the courts take judicial notice of the fact that no two people have identical fingerprints, that is, no proof is required of this fact. Convictions have been upheld when there was no other evidence of identity.
Similarly, with DNA evidence, although in some cases evidence will be adduced to challenge the common assumption that no 2 DNA's are alike, or impeach the statistical variance by reference to the extent of the matching of the samples.

 

[bsee65]

I don't quite understand Bruce. Is DNA evidence also circumstantial then? Haven't people been found not guilty via that means? Could you explain more please.

DNA proves that someone's bodily fluids are somewhere. It doesn't prove how they got there. Depending upon the scenario, one must conclude how it came to be where it did. For example, DNA can't prove rape. Technically, it doesn't even prove direct contact.

 

[Under-Exposed]

Liv, to more directly answer your question, yes DNA evidence is circumstantial. To take fingerpints as an easy example, a witness will give direct evidence of the fact that that they collected a fingerprint from a crime scene, another witness give direct evidence of their opinion as to the comparison they made between that fingerprint and the fingerprints of the accused. It is circumstantial evidence of the fact in issue that the accused was present at the crime scene. Similarly, with DNA evidence you may have direct factual evidence as to the collection of a sample from the crime scene, direct factual evidence as to the collection of a sample from the accused, then depending upon factors such as the quality of the sample and the ethnicity of the accused you may have a series of opinion evidence as to the similarity between the two DNA profiles, the statistical probability (or improbability) of that similarity arising by chance (usually very small, so the inference to be drawn is that the samples come from the same individual) and again, the evidence is circumstantial because the tribunal of fact (usually a jury) is invited to draw the inference that the accused was present at the crime scene. The significance of that inference will depend upon the case at hand. If the sample is from a rape victim that the accused claims to have never had sex with then the inference is highly significant. But if there is a sensible explanation as to why an accused's DNA might be found in a crime scene (such as the accused lived there) then there may be little significance in the inference at all.

 

[Under-Exposed]

DNA proves that someone's bodily fluids are somewhere. It doesn't prove how they got there. Depending upon the scenario, one must conclude how it came to be where it did. For example, DNA can't prove rape. Technically, it doesn't even prove direct contact.

That is true and not true. It may prove rape if the defence case is that the accused did not have sex at all with the complainant (there being no issue or contrary evidence on the other elements of rape such as consent). And it may also prove direct contact if there is no sensible alternative explanation for how the DNA could have got there.

But it proves those things by providing indirect evidence from which the inference of proof may be drawn conclusively because of the absence of any other explanation.

 

[livinoz]

Liv, to more directly answer your question, yes DNA evidence is circumstantial. To take fingerpints as an easy example, a witness will give direct evidence of the fact that that they collected a fingerprint from a crime scene, another witness give direct evidence of their opinion as to the comparison they made between that fingerprint and the fingerprints of the accused. It is circumstantial evidence of the fact in issue that the accused was present at the crime scene. Similarly, with DNA evidence you may have direct factual evidence as to the collection of a sample from the crime scene, direct factual evidence as to the collection of a sample from the accused, then depending upon factors such as the quality of the sample and the ethnicity of the accused you may have a series of opinion evidence as to the similarity between the two DNA profiles, the statistical probability (or improbability) of that similarity arising by chance (usually very small, so the inference to be drawn is that the samples come from the same individual) and again, the evidence is circumstantial because the tribunal of fact (usually a jury) is invited to draw the inference that the accused was present at the crime scene. The significance of that inference will depend upon the case at hand. If the sample is from a rape victim that the accused claims to have never had sex with then the inference is highly significant. But if there is a sensible explanation as to why an accused's DNA might be found in a crime scene (such as the accused lived there) then there may be little significance in the inference at all.

Okay, so basically most evidence is circumstantial? But if an inference cannot be reasonably made then the accused must be found not guilty, ie, given the benefit of the doubt?

 

[ItsBruce]

I'm not sure I'd say most evidence is circumstantial, but a lot of it is. Consider my example of the cat and mouse in the box. If it is a clear box and you watch the cat eat the mouse, you can testify that you saw the cat eat the mouse. That is direct evidence. It is based on your having actually perceived the event. If the box is opaque, you can testify you saw a cat and mouse go into the box, that you saw the box was sealed and that only the cat came out of the box. That is circumstantial evidence of the cat having eaten the mouse.

In either case, if the jury believes you, that will establish the cat ate the mouse.

Now, if there was evidence of a hole in the box and that you were not watching the hole at all times, that might be evidence, albeit circumstantial, that the cat did not eat the mouse and it might leave doubt as to whether the cat ate the mouse.

Contrast all of this with the witness who testifies that his friend heard someone say that she saw the cat eat the mouse. That is "hearsay." While the jury could decide if they believe the witness about what he heard, the jury can't evaluate the friend's credibility of the person who the friend heard say whatever it was she said. That is why courts generally do not allow the jury to even consider hearsay.

I hope this helps. And, if it is not as well framed as it might be, that's because it is 12:43.

 

[livinoz]

I'm not sure I'd say most evidence is circumstantial, but a lot of it is. Consider my example of the cat and mouse in the box. If it is a clear box and you watch the cat eat the mouse, you can testify that you saw the cat eat the mouse. That is direct evidence. It is based on your having actually perceived the event. If the box is opaque, you can testify you saw a cat and mouse go into the box, that you saw the box was sealed and that only the cat came out of the box. That is circumstantial evidence of the cat having eaten the mouse.

In either case, if the jury believes you, that will establish the cat ate the mouse.

Now, if there was evidence of a hole in the box and that you were not watching the hole at all times, that might be evidence, albeit circumstantial, that the cat did not eat the mouse and it might leave doubt as to whether the cat ate the mouse.

Contrast all of this with the witness who testifies that his friend heard someone say that she saw the cat eat the mouse. That is "hearsay." While the jury could decide if they believe the witness about what he heard, the jury can't evaluate the friend's credibility of the person who the friend heard say whatever it was she said. That is why courts generally do not allow the jury to even consider hearsay.

I hope this helps. And, if it is not as well framed as it might be, that's because it is 12:43.

Yes that makes sense to me, thanks very much. I just had trouble envisaging the difference between direct and circumstantial evidence and how someone could be convicted on that.