alt Hacker Newsone of the more fun things I learned during criminal court in Texas is that the absence of forensic evidence cannot exonerate an individual. The prosecutor and the judge covered that despite not having any forensic evidence, the jury would still be expected to be able to convict the defendant. If you weren't OK with that you weren't eligible to serve on a jury.
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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
The expectation of evidence makes its absence significant, but not definitive.
Was your prior assumption that forensic evidence must exist in every case—and that if it doesn’t, then there’s no way to convince a jury of someone’s guilt?
As in, as long as I clean up really well afterward, I can pretty much do what I want?
Individuals don’t require exoneration in court.
The prosecution, regardless of unethical grandstanding, have a duty to prove the case without any resaonable doubt. They hold the burden of proof.
I would, of course, agree with them as physical evidence isn’t necessarily a requirement to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt. But I would certainly draw my own inference from their mendacity if they used those words.
Your duty as a juror is to make a determination of fact and apply the law as guided by the judge to reach a verdict. When the prosecutor gives you some blabber approaching instructions, that’s an attempt to influence you.
I'm surprised they'd even need to say that, let alone people who heard it were just learning it. I would imagine the overwhelming majority of cases don't involve forensic evidence. I've only had close involvement in a handful of cases that resulted in a conviction, but none involved forensic evidence. In one they took fingerprints (and the handle to our cash drawer, which they never returned), but that didn't result in a conviction.
> If you weren't OK with that you weren't eligible to serve on a jury.
same reason they are really out to disqualify jurors who know about jury nullification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
This just means that you can't insist someone is innocent despite overwhelming evidence just because they didn't leave any forensic evidence behind which is completely reasonable.
Five (or fifty-five) people giving unambiguous eyewitness testimony that clearly identified the defendant and the crime he committed, with them all keeping their stories consistent under hostile cross-examination has exactly zero forensic evidence... but if you, as a juror, found all of that persuasive, it sounds like it should be enough to convict.
I mean...yeah?
If someone commits a crime and ten people in the room say they were also in the room and that person did it, that shouldn't get thrown out because the suspect didn't leave a fingerprint.
I mean of course if not 10,000 people could stand in a room, watch someone murder another, and then all 10,000 come and testify exactly who it was and what the jury would not be allowed to convict?
They are trying to avoid a situation where you end up with one juror who watches a lot of CSI and insists that they need forensic evidence to convict, despite having a dozen eye-witnesses. If a juror cannot imagine a circumstance where the evidence could be beyond a reasonable doubt based on non-forensic evidence, then they aren't suitable to be a juror.