What I think is the PGPs are bears of very little brain. They yap about circumstantial evidence because they picked up from the Galati appeal that Hellman had not
combined all the evidence and if he had only
combined all the evidence it would be clear to any reasonable person that they were guilty beyond all doubt. They think Hellman cheated by cunningly treating each piece of evidence in isolation and refusing to combine it with other pieces of evidence.
This is complicated and at the same time simple. Complicated because life is complicated in inconveniently throwing up infinitely variable sets of circumstances which resist organisation under comprehensive principles which can be easily expressed and universally applied. What the Italians shroud in impenetrable legalese the British express with beguiling simplicity (without having a legal system that does not work):
- items of circumstantial evidence should not be viewed in isolation from each other, and
- circumstantial evidence tends to work cumulatively
And that's it. If I were instructed by the owner of the apartment to recover damages from Rudy Guede for soiling her bathmat I estimate the chances of success on the civil standard at above 90% and on the criminal standard at above 70%. I have no direct evidence, only the circumstantial kind which most reading here can set out for themselves.
But, the Italians have a statutory threshold test which they apply
before any item gets to be combined with the others. Galati set it out in the appeal [p.10 of the PMF translation]
"Our legislature, via the disposition of Article 192 Criminal Procedure Code, has dictated the rules for the evaluation of evidence in the criminal trial. It concerns itself with circumstantial evidence in paragraph 2 of the Article, specifying that: ‚The existence of a fact may not be inferred from circumstantial evidence unless this evidence is of sufficient weight, precise and consistent‛."
This is not a rule that exists in my jurisdiction. It is not necessary or logical. It is, however, Italian law and
Hellman applied it to the 'bricks' making up the prosecution case when saying:
and he was attacked for taking a piecemeal approach. This what Popper is on about. Popper is an idiot, though. What he is saying that if you have a piece of lousy evidence it suddenly becomes good because of other pieces of lousy evidence. That is
not how it works!
Take Curatolo. Nothing corroborates him. If it did, his evidence, lousy as it is,
might acquire some limited value. If there were CCTV footage of them walking down to the piazza, for example, or if somebody else saw them too, or one of them cracked and said they were in the piazza or they dropped something there etc etc. If you had all those things, mind, you probably wouldn't need Curatolo at all. What does
not corroborate Curatolo is Nara, say, the phones being found at Lana's or a hundred other things and that is true of most (all?) the evidence - it does not line up and compel you to a particular conclusion. Instead it's a jumble of stuff treading on the toes of other stuff. Of course, it's really worse than that because a good deal of it is simply made up, which, of course, makes it circumstantial evidence of something
else entirely!
Popper has latched onto something he or she has not properly understood.
