What does &quot;circumstantial evidence&quot; mean in criminal procedure? What does the term &quot;circumstantial&quot; or &quot;circumstantial evidence&quot; mean in a legal context, particularly in regard to criminal law? How is it different from other kinds of evidence. Is it correct that circumstantial evidence is weaker or less valuable than direct evidence? Please cite reliable sources for any answers. I am particularly interested in answers for the US (any state) but answers from other jurisdictions would also be welcome.
Overview The term &quot;circumstantial evidence&quot; refers to evidence that does not directly establish the elements of the crime, but that permits the finder of fact to draw inferences about what happened. It is called circumstantial because it shows the circumstances, often of the crime scene, but in any case of something in some way related to the alleged crime. For example, a knife found in a dead body would be circumstantial evidence, as would fingerprints found on the knife. An eye-witness account of the crime would be direct evidence, not circumstantial evidence. So would a video of the events of the crime, say from a security camera. Most physical evidence is circumstantial evidence. Much eye-witness is direct evidence. There is also opinion evidence, also known as expert testimony. In a US court at least, pretty much all evidence falls into one of these three categories. Circumstantial evidence can be misinterpreted, and it can even be faked, although that is comparatively rare. Direct evidence can include lies, misunderstandings, and particularly misperceptions.1 For example, a witness sees two people struggling, hears a shot and sees a flash, then one drops dead. This is direct evidence, not circumstantial. But does it prove murder, or even intentional killing? It need not; one person could have drawn a gun and the other struggled to seize it, and the gun fired in the struggle, killing the person who originally drew it, with no one intending that result. On the other hand, suppose a victim reports a rape. Semen is obtained from the victim's person. The victim shows bruises and injuries characteristic of rape. DNA tests match the accused, as do fingerprints in the victim's blood at the scene of the crime. That is all circumstantial, but taken together, there seems only one reasonable interpretation. Sources The definition of &quot;circumstantial evidence&quot; from Law.con's legal dictionary reads: evidence in a trial which is not directly from an eyewitness or participant and requires some reasoning to prove a fact. The page goes on to state: There is a public perception that such evidence is weak (&quot;all they have is circumstantial evidence&quot;), but the probable conclusion from the circumstances may be so strong that there can be little doubt as to a vital fact (&quot;beyond a reasonable doubt&quot; in a criminal case, and &quot;a preponderance of the evidence&quot; in a civil case). Particularly in criminal cases, &quot;eyewitness&quot; (&quot;I saw Frankie shoot Johnny&quot;) type evidence is often lacking and may be unreliable, so circumstantial evidence becomes essential. Prior threats to the victim, fingerprints found at the scene of the crime, ownership of the murder weapon, and the accused being seen in the neighborhood, certainly point to the suspect as being the killer, but each bit of evidence is circumstantial. The Britannica article on &quot;Circumstantial Evidence&quot; defines the term as: circumstantial evidence, in law, evidence not drawn from direct observation of a fact in issue. The page goes on to state: If a witness testifies that he saw a defendant fire a bullet into the body of a person who then died, this is direct testimony of material facts in murder, and the only question is whether the witness is telling the truth. If, however, the witness is able to testify only that he heard the shot and that he arrived on the scene seconds later to see the accused standing over the corpse with a smoking pistol in his hand, the evidence is circumstantial; the accused may have been shooting at the escaping killer or merely have been a bystander who picked up the weapon after the killer had dropped it. Merriam-webster's definition is: evidence that tends to prove a fact by proving other events or circumstances which afford a basis for a reasonable inference of the occurrence of the fact at issue. Notes [1] See for example &quot;Eyewitness identification: Effects of suggestion and bias in identification from photographs&quot;. In &quot;Eyewitness Testimony (Scientific American, Dec 1974) Prof Robert Buckhout wrote: Although such testimony is frequently challenged, it is still widely assumed to be more reliable than other kinds of evidence. Numerous experiments show, however, that it is remarkably subject to error. See also https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eyewitness-testimony/ See also &quot;Eyewitness Identification: Should Psychologists be Permitted to Address the jury by Margaret J. Lane, 75 J. Crim. L. &amp; Criminology 1321 (1984) where it is stated: The unreliability of eyewitness testimony' is inconsistent with the criminal justice system's reliance upon it.
Chain of custody and testimony in this regard. Say there is a murder victim, with DNA of the suspect under the fingernails and a knife with the suspect's bloody fingerprints stuck in the chest. There would be testimony what happened to the knife. If a paramedic removed it to attempt first aid, the paramedic would testify. So would the officer who bagged it, and the forensic analyst who took the fingerprints. A pathologist would testify if the knife was consistent with the stab wound (a careful pathologist could never swear that the knife was the cause of death, just that it matches). The pathologist would also testify how DNA was collected under the fingernails, and how it was sent to the lab. The defense may claim that the suspect also tried first aid, or that a corrupt cop forced the suspect to hold the knife. The court or jury then draw their conclusions from this and other testimony. Same here. A lifelike picture found on the web proves nothing. A witness who takes the stand to testify that he or she took a certain picture would be more credible. So would a forensic officer who testifies how she or he removed the data from a surveillance camera, checked for common signs of tampering, and then signed a copy of the data with a private key. (The signing shows no third-party tampering after collection, it is not evidence of integrity before that.) Years ago, in germany, there was the case of a bank robber who claimed that a fleeing suspect had handed him a bag of money in the forest and then vanished. &quot;Prove it wasn't so,&quot; he demanded. &quot;You can't. So there is reasonable doubt.&quot; Well, the court found that the statement merely created unreasonable doubt, and the sentence was upheld on appeal.
No. There is a clear distinction between: evidence (or testimony), which consists of statements of fact given by witnesses on oath (subject to prosecution for perjury), governed by the rules of evidence, and which the jury is required to consider but not accept (in the sense that a verdict which is not supported by the evidence can be set aside on appeal), submissions, which consist of argument by the lawyers for the parties, which the jury is not required to consider or accept, and directions, which consist of statements of law given by the judge, which the jury is required to accept. The jury is required by its oath to follow the law as stated by the judge, even if it is wrong. The remedy for erroneous trial directions (an appeal) is different to the remedy for erroneous evidence (a perjury prosecution in the case of deliberate lies; nothing in the case of innocent errors). Because the jury has the power, but not the right, to nullify a charge by disobeying the judge’s directions, there is a sense in which the jury is free to reject the judge’s directions just as it is free to reject evidence. However, this is completely inconsistent with the theory that defines the roles of judge and jury. There is no legal basis for viewing judicial directions as a kind of expert testimony. ‘The power, but not the right’ Obie 2.0 asked about this phrase. It coems from the Case of the Dean of St Asaph, which is reported at R v Shipley (1784) 4 Doug 73. The relevant passage is summarised in Lord Devlin's Trial by Jury (1956), at p 87: Jury’s Power of Acquittal There may well be cases in which the killing is not in doubt and the formal direction not to return a verdict of manslaughter is therefore tantamount to a direction to return a verdict of Guilty. Still, if the direction is ignored, the court must, I think, accept the verdict. There is no way in which a verdict of acquittal can be nullified. As Lord Chief Justice Mansfield put it in 1784: “It is the duty of the judge, in all cases of general justice, to tell the jury how to do right, though they have it in their power to do wrong, which is a matter entirely between God and their own consciences.” Mr. Justice Willes said: “I admit the jury have the power of finding a verdict against the law and so they have of finding a verdict against evidence, but I deny they have the right to do so.” The Chief Justice of Australia held to similar effect in Gammage v The Queen (1969) 122 CLR 444, writing: [The jury] have no right, in my opinion, to return a verdict of manslaughter where they are satisfied of murder. But, as I have said, persistence by them in returning another verdict must ultimately result in the acceptance of that verdict. In that sense, but in no other sense, it is both within their power and, if you will, their privilege to return a wrong verdict. To answer Obie 2.0's question, the jury has the power to ignore the judge's directions, because – at least at the time Lord Devlin was writing in 1956 – a verdict of acquittal could not be nullified. However, the jury does not have the right to do so because the law requires it to follow the directions. As Ed999 observes, the law governing jury trials does vary between jurisdictions. In particular, some jurisdictions (which lack the United States' constitutional double jeopardy clause) now allow for a jury acquittal to be set aside on appeal. However, the fundamental distinction between a witness’s evidence and a judge’s directions was established in England centuries ago, and remains applicable throughout the common law world. It is worth specifically mentioning the United States because jury nullification remains a controversial topic in that jurisdiction. However, the basic principle that the jury is legally required to follow the judge’s directions was established in Sparf v. United States, 156 U.S. 51 (1895), and described by Ginsburg J (albeit in a dissenting judgment) as ‘conclusive’ in Honda Motor Co. v. Oberg, 512 U.S. 415, 447 (1994). In Sparf, the opinion of the court was: We must hold firmly to the doctrine that in the courts of the United States it is the duty of juries in criminal cases to take the law from the court and apply that law to the facts as they find them to be from the evidence.
This is a good question, which I am going to answer from a practical perspective, rather than a theoretical one, which would probably justify a law review article (applications of the takings clause to criminal justice fact patterns is actually one of my pet areas of legal scholarship, but a lot of it calls for dramatic changes in established practice and precedents reached from other perspectives, making it impractical to pursue in real life). I recently had a case along these lines in my office where my client's property was seized as evidence in a criminal case against a third-party. The crime involved a gun shop where all of the guns that were in the possession of the shop owner for repairs at the time of the bust (i.e. as bailments), including ours worth several thousand dollars in addition to having some sentimental value, were seized as evidence of charges against a shop owner who was fencing stolen goods, making sales to felons off the books, falsifying excise tax returns, etc. He seemed legitimate and had been in business for many years in what was not a fly by night operation. He had all of the proper licenses. Who knew we were dealing with a crook? In that case, we intervened on behalf of our client in the primary case to seek the physical return of the property (basically a replevin claim), as have others affected by the bust. It took a few months and some legal fees, but we prevailed without too much effort, as have the other intervenors. Generally speaking, to make a 5th Amendment claim, you would have to show a total taking and move into some legal gray areas in this context, while it is usually hard for authorities to show a continuing need for possession of third-party property in the face of a demand for its return, especially when photography and other scientific tools can document the evidence in great detail these days. In that case, showing that our client's particular gun was not involved in any illegitimate transaction also simultaneously made it less important as evidence, although that would not necessarily be true in general in these kinds of situations. There is a pending case in Colorado posing similar issues, where a suburban police department essentially destroyed a guy's home in order to catch a felon with no relation to the homeowner whatsoever, who had fled into it and taken refuge there. But, that case, as far as I know, has not yet been resolved on the merits.
This is very, very weird. I've never heard of a case like this one. Is there some context that could explain why anyone would refile a divorce someplace new twelve years after getting divorced the first time around? The logical thing to do if Canadian civil procedure is at all analogous to U.S. civil procedure on this point, would be to have a Canadian lawyer file a motion in the Canadian divorce case to set aside the judgment on the extraordinary grounds that you were not married any longer at the time that the 2015 divorce was filed, seeking to set aside the 2015 case ruling. In most U.S. jurisdictions with civil procedural rules modeled on the federal rules of civil procedure (California's are not), this would be a motion under Rule of Civil Procedure 60, but obviously, the Canadian rule numbering would probably be different. Alternatively, if the home is in California, you could bring an action for declaratory judgment declaring that the Canadian judgment is invalid because it was brought in a divorce action between people who were already divorced and probably also lacked jurisdiction over you and the property. I'm not sure what you mean by CPL in this context. Normally, in a real estate context, a CPL would mean a "closing protection letter", but in the context you are using it, it sounds like you are referring to something akin to a lis pendens or a lien. Perhaps you mean a "certificate of pending litigation" which is another name of a lis pendens in at least some Canadian jurisdictions (but is terminology rarely used in the U.S.). This sounds like slander of title, or "abuse of process" or the filing of what is known as a spurious lien, any of which are actionable, but without knowing what a CPL actually is, it is hard to know.
Yes. The jurisdiction I am familiar with is England and Wales. Conviction requires evidence (witness testimony is evidence) which proves the case "beyond reasonable doubt". It is open to the jury to find the witness so convincing that they find that they are sure the defendant committed the crime. In general of course, prosecutors prefer to have some supporting evidence (either additional witnesses, or circumstantial evidence - like DNA.)
A case can be &quot;dismissed&quot; at (most) any time (however, the further along in the process a case is, the less likely a judge will allow a case to be dismissed without very good reason). A case can be dismissed with or without &quot;prejudice&quot;, which in this legal context means essentially &quot;finality&quot;. A case dismissed with prejudice cannot be brought again, while a case dismissed without prejudice can be refiled. (Compare the criminal law concept of &quot;double jeopardy&quot;, though as phoog correctly notes, &quot;double jeopardy&quot; only applies in criminal trials, while prejudice can be applied in both civil and criminal courts). Many cases are dismissed without looking at the evidence (or even having the evidence admitted to the record); this is called &quot;summary judgement&quot; or &quot;judgement as a matter of law&quot;. There are generally three cases when this happens: First, if the prosecution or plaintiff (i.e. the party bringing accusations) has &quot;failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted&quot;, i.e. asked for something the court cannot grant. Second, is if the defendant can show, that even if everything alledged by the plaintiff is true, that the necessarily elements of the crime or offense have not been proven. Third, is if there are no facts in dispute, and only a disagreement on interpreting the law.
There is no absolute rule in such cases. It is often a matter of negotiation between the state and federal authorities, and failing agreement, a matter of which authority has the prisoner in custody. Often the question of which crime is more serious or carries a longer sentence is an issue in such negotiations.