> pointing indirectly towards someone's guilt but not conclusively proving it.
You are correct that within a technical legal context most evidence is circumstantial. But that isnt the only meaning of the word, and indeed, largely not what is meant.
I can consult Merriam Webster, which agrees with what I said. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/circumstantial%20...
Or Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/topic/circumstantial-evidence
Or Cornell
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/circumstantial_evidence
Or basically any single law firm or courthouse
https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/defense/legal-defenses/circumst...
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/circumst...
https://www.nycourts.gov/judges/cji/1-General/CJI2d.Circumst...
Yes, inferences must be made. But as a lot of those links mention, direct evidence (the other kind of evidence) is often worse as it's usually eyewitness accounts.
Lazy television writers have done us all a disservice by repeated implication that circumstantial evidence isn't good enough.
1. belonging to, consisting in, or dependent on circumstances
2. pertinent but not essential : incidental
The original comment used the word correctly. Because dictionaries describe how people actually speak, not prescribe rules on how to use words. That's why they get updated every so often as word usages change.
To counter that point, "circumstantial" has a legal meaning that does not change as easily.
A lot of words have specific meanings, yet we don't complain and cite dictionary definitions when people use the word "or" as exclusive-or.
In other words, the appropriate definition of a term of art is... circumstantial. ;)
It is also the case that the alleged new evidence for Poste being the killer is, in fact, circumstantial with respect to the issue of who committed the murders in question.
So, returning to that first paragraph, to establish whether what mauze meant is wrong, we must establish both that mauze meant something other than what was written, and that the intended meaning was wrong.
I do not see any conclusive evidence as to what mause meant. Furthermore, bena's reply to mause suggests that the intended meaning was 'weak'. That strikes me as plausible, but as far as I can tell, it would not be an obviously wrong characterization of the new evidence.