Imagine being the unibombers neighbor and getting arrested for the crimes because you searched for the same things he did.
> wholly, exclusively. a selection based purely on merit
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> A popular misconception is that circumstantial evidence is less valid or less important than direct evidence
because you know ... knowing that a person's phone was in the vicinity at a specific time in a specific area is as strong as a video of person A killing person B.
Such a common "misconception".
Furthermore, we know that people get wrongly convicted. We know this because they get exonerated down the road. It's also a tautology. "It's ok to use circumstantial evidence to get convictions because the legal system currently uses circumstantial evidence to get convictions".
Some of us don't want to go to jail because we happened to be driving through the wrong place at the wrong time.
Usually this would be circumstantial evidence because you have to infer it was actually person A and B in the video, and it actually depicted the murder. There could be alternative explanations, such as "that was my twin" or "we were performing a murder on stage".
Indeed, the common metaphor for the strongest possible evidence in any case—the "smoking gun"—is an example of proof based on circumstantial evidence Similarly, fingerprint evidence, videotapes, sound recordings, photographs, and many other examples of physical evidence that support the drawing of an inference, i.e., circumstantial evidence, are considered very strong possible evidence
The heart of the case is the presentation of evidence. There are two types of evidence -- direct and circumstantial.
Direct evidence usually is that which speaks for itself: eyewitness accounts, a confession, or a weapon.
Circumstantial evidence usually is that which suggests a fact by implication or inference: the appearance of the scene of a crime, testimony that suggests a connection or link with a crime, physical evidence that suggests criminal activity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_evidence
In direct evidence, a witness relates what they directly experienced.
Circumstantial evidence, by contrast, consists of a fact or set of facts which, if proven, will support the creation of an inference that the matter asserted is true.
https://youtu.be/4xGluGlQgdA?t=310
Direct evidence, often in the form of eyewitness testimony, can be extraordinarily weak. On the contrary, DNA evidence, for example, is 100% circumstantial.