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Comment by wpm | Hacker News Reader

Circumstantial. There are a 1000 different ways he could have obtained those items without committing a murder. Prove that having them is proof positive he killed someone.

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I don't think we should have capital punishment at all, anywhere, and certainly this is a textbook example of why, but circumstantial evidence is real evidence, admissible in court cases.

This is true, but circumstantial evidence is seldom enough to have the DA bring a case to trial because it is weak evidence.

At least, thats my impression im not a lawyer.

My understanding is that the opposite is closer to the truth: most cases are made on circumstantial evidence. Jury instructions apparently tell jurors not to weight it any differently than direct evidence.

What does that mean? That they makeup spurious causal chains and believe that is reality?

Just search [missouri model jury instructions circumstantial evidence]. Jury instructions are written in plain English.

This is indeed true. Most cases are made on circumstantial evidence.

Actually the instructions tell the jury that how much weight to give to any evidence is up to them.

Multiple witnesses seeing a suspect run out of a store holding a smoking gun shortly after the store clerk was shot is both circumstantial evidence and plenty for a DA to bring to trial.

I don't think? this is even a real debate. One can want it to be otherwise, but criminal law does not disfavor circumstantial evidence.

"Circumstantial" evidence is often stronger than "direct" evidence. e.g. DNA is almost always "circumstantial", yet more modernly maligned eye witness evidence is "direct".

I don't think there are 1000 different ways to get both a ruler and a laptop that belonged to the same murder victim.

[1] Ruler is in the folded laptop, laptop gets stolen, laptop is sold, ruler inside, buyer is told he can keep the cool ruler.

[2] Murderer specifically tries to pin the murder on someone else. Someone else being prosecuted is a good way to live free after, gifts his laptop and a ruler to the suspect or leaves them somewhere where they are discovered and taken.

Is that unlikely? Is it more unlikely than a murderer keeping the laptop and ruler from a victim, tying him to the murder?

For me this alone would be absolutely insufficient evidence, to sentence someone to death. The ease with which some here would do this shocks me.

Fair, but the Innocence Project did not argue that the defendant received inadequate representation. So presumably the defense would have had to offer an explanation during the trial and the jury was apparently unconvinced.

Juries can get things wrong, but we’re also just getting the cliff notes of the trial rather than the whole story.

Did they ask Williams how the laptop got there? If yes, what did he say? If not, why not?

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