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Definition of Circumstantial Evidence

The document discusses circumstantial evidence and its importance in criminal cases. It provides definitions and examples of circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence refers to unrelated facts that can indirectly establish a conclusion when considered together, rather than direct evidence from eyewitnesses. Examples given include a person seen shopping after an alleged theft or finding someone holding a gun at a crime scene. The document notes that most criminal convictions are based at least partly on circumstantial evidence and that circumstantial evidence is just as valid as direct evidence.

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101 views2 pages

Definition of Circumstantial Evidence

The document discusses circumstantial evidence and its importance in criminal cases. It provides definitions and examples of circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence refers to unrelated facts that can indirectly establish a conclusion when considered together, rather than direct evidence from eyewitnesses. Examples given include a person seen shopping after an alleged theft or finding someone holding a gun at a crime scene. The document notes that most criminal convictions are based at least partly on circumstantial evidence and that circumstantial evidence is just as valid as direct evidence.

Uploaded by

adie rathi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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In words of Stephen Leacock,

“My evidence for this assertion is all indirect, it’s what we call circumstantial evidence the same
the people are hang for..”. Giving the importance of circumstantial evidence in criminal cases
and discussing the present role of circumstantial evidence, in nailing the two most leading cases,
of Manu Sharma and Santosh Kumar, the same evidence that the trial court had dismissed as
being insufficient or inadequate for conviction. Although it seems self-evident, that meaning of
evidence must be articulated first, before the next steps in the analytical process may be pursued.

Analysis of the term Evidence


Evidence" is the raw material which a judge or adjudicator uses to reach "findings of fact". The
findings of fact that the evidence generates are - for all their flaws - "what happened" for all
intents and purposes of the legal proceeding. If you do not agree with the fact-finding that has
been made (or even if you know it to be wrong), recognize that the rules of evidence are the best
rules that law know of to reach the necessary goal of fact-finding.

“In its original sense the word ‘evidence’ signifies, the state of being evident i.e. plain, apparent
or notorious. But…. It is applied to that which tends to render evidence or generate proof …. The
fact sought to be proved is called the principal fact; the fact which tends to establish it, the
evidentiary fact”

Analysis of the Term “Circumstantial Evidence”


Television show lawyers speak a lot about "circumstantial evidence". "Circumstantial evidence"
however is not so much a type of evidence as it is a
logical principle of deduction. Deduction is reasoning from general known principles to a
specific proposition

Circumstantial evidence is unrelated facts that, when considered together, can be used to infer a
conclusion about something unknown. Information and testimony presented by a party in a civil
or criminal action that permit conclusions that indirectly establish the existence or nonexistence
of a fact or event that the party seeks to prove.

An example of circumstantial evidence is the behavior of a person around the time of an alleged
offense. If someone were charged with theft of money, and were then seen in a shopping spree
purchasing expensive items, the shopping spree might be regarded as circumstantial evidence of
the individual's guilt. Similarly if a witness arrives at a crime scene seconds after hearing a
gunshot to find someone standing over a corpse and holding a smoking pistol, the evidence is
circumstantial, since the person may merely be a bystander who picked up the weapon after the
killer dropped it. The popular notion that one cannot be convicted on circumstantial evidence is
false. Most criminal convictions are based, at least in part, on circumstantial evidence that
sufficiently links criminal and crime.
In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has stated in Holland v. United States .
that "circumstantial evidence is intrinsically no different from testimonial [direct] evidence"
Thus, the distinction between direct and circumstantial evidence has little practical effect in the
presentation or admissibility of evidence in trials. Similarly in India the two leading case of
Priyadarshani Matoo and Jessica Lal were heavily based on circumstantial evidence.

DEFINITION

evidence which inferentially proves the principal fact by establishing a condition of surrounding
and limiting circumstances, whose existence is a premise from which the existence of the
principal fact may be concluded by necessary laws of reasoning.
When the existence of any fact is attested by witnesses, as having come under the cognizance of
their senses, or is stated in documents, the genuineness and veracity of which there seems no
reason to question, the evidence of that fact is said to be direct or positive. When, on the
contrary, the existence of the principal fact is only inferred from one or more circumstances
which have been established directly, the evidence is said to be circumstantial. And when the
existence of the principal fact does not follow from the evidentiary facts as a necessary
consequence of the law of nature, but is deduced from them by a process of probable reasoning,
the evidence and proof are said to be presumptive.

All presumptive evidence is circumstantial, because necessarily derived from or made up of


circumstances, but all circumstantial evidence is not presumptive, that is, it does not operate in
the way of presumption, being sometimes of a higher grade, and lending to necessary
conclusions, instead of probable ones.

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