I agree with you, but placing him at the scene (per admission of his own counsel), coupled with the joint venture law, make him guilty. That plus his many “how not to cover up a murder” blunders (the gum, rental car, second apartment, home surveillance video...and him trying to destroy the equipment...etc.) point his…

Circumstantial evidence is the best evidence, and is the opposite of “emotional reactions and conjecture.” You’re only scared because you don’t understand the phrase “circumstantial evidence.”

Imagine you put somebody alone in a room with a blueberry pie, with no entrances or exits other than one door. You then close and lock the door and stand in front of it, not allowing anybody to enter or exit.

Circumstantial evidence is plenty enough for any conviction.

Let me give you a scenario:

You’re in a room with Mr. A. No entrances but a door. As you leave the room, Mr. B walks in with a gun with a silencer on in his hand. Mr. B closes the door. 30 seconds later, Mr. B walks out of the door with smoke coming out of the…

I will admit that I haven’t followed this that closely, but I believe there was enough physical evidence placing him at the scene that they likely felt they had to concede it in order to keep their credibility on other arguments the defense team was making. It was kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t…

You realize that DNA and fingerprints are circumstantial evidence, right? What you are saying then is that unless there is an eyewitness (direct evidence), no one can be convicted of a crime.

And then there’s the Nisha call

This is EXACTLY what I tell jurors when explaining circumstantial evidence in both voir dire and closing. Thankfully the jury instructions also help us out, but that’s usually the first trope you see in most courtroom movie and tv dramas.

Here’s how: as a juror you’re given an instruction that says “circumstantial evidence and direct evidence are of equal weight”, so as a matter of law, convicting on circumstantial evidence is not only permissible but required when a juror says that based on it they are firmly convinced of the truth of the charge. We…

There was a clear motive, to shut up the victim about the drive-by-killing in 2012. But the judge rulled that as speculation and told the jury his motive was “anger”. Yeah, anger, that’s why he did it..

What makes you think circumstantial evidence is any less reliable than direct evidence?

I blame law and order for this perception that Circumstantial evidence is to somehow to be mistrusted and dismissed. It was like a go to line in the show’s heyday “Well, all you have is circumstantial evidence, McCoy!” The the DA would be like “he’s right! we can’t use this!” and then we’d check in with the buddy cop…

Hernandez also has a really petulant demeanor, and comes off as a d-bag when he’s sitting in the courtroom staring around. The asshole is just built into his spine and central-nervous system, somehow. You get the benefit of being a celebrity from juries and the justice system when you’re likable. Hernandez never…

Circumstantial evidence is not the same as “emotion” nor “conjecture”.

he admitted to being there while the murder took place, then hung out with accomplices at his pool, and tried to fund their getaway. what other evidence do you need?

I’m not going to launch into a lecture about reasonable inferences, the fact that some physical evidence existed, etc., because I sucked at law school. But it is interesting to hear non-legal folks’ thoughts on these things. I know among my law school buddies/attorney friends, all but one of us always thought he’d get…

His DNA was found at the murder scene on a cig butt. It was an vacant lot, so its not like he could have dropped it another time while taking a casual stroll. Pretty damning evidence me thinks.

I can’t help but think you don’t know the definitions of both physical and evidence. There was a shitload of physical evidence. There was no direct evidence, which is eyewitness testimony or a defendant’s confession. But no semi-stupid to smart killer is going to leave an eyewitness or confess. Perhaps that is where…

They had physical evidence, they just didn’t have the murder weapon. But every other piece of evidence overwhelmed the lack of a gun. He probably thought all he had to do was hide the gun and he could get away with it.

They had physical evidence. They had a shell casing in his rental car that just-so-happened to match the make of the weapon used against Lloyd, and appeared identical to the casings from the scene. No, they may not have been able to definitively prove that they were fired from the same gun, but that’s still pretty…