[dillywho]

Originally Posted by Freeda

There are cases where a body is never found, at all; and so there is no evidence at all of the details of exactly how, when, or where the murder took place; and yet premeditated murder of the missing/never found person is found by a jury (and upheld by the courts), based on strong circumstantial evidence, as exists in this case; and based on the reasonable inferences that can be drawn from it. If the exact details of a murder had to always be proven in order to convict, then a murderer could always get away with it (and unfortunately as we know, sometimes they do), as long as they are good enough at hiding the precise details of the event, and at hiding the body. Think about how scary the world would be if that was the law!

As a sort of analogy, if someone gave another person their valuable gemstone (and there were witnesses, a written signed receipt, etc., to prove that) for safekeeping for the owner; and the person to whom the gem was given to hold it failed, when requested by the owner, to ever return it, and just kept silent and never provided any explanation for its whereabouts, a jury would most certainly be able convict the person for theft, beyond a reasonable doubt; based on the logical inferences from the known material facts. The holder of the gemstone could not just take the position that 'the prosecution must prove that I still have it, and that I didn't lose it, must prove where I have hidden it, and must prove that someone didn't steal it from me; unless they do, I cannot be found guilty of theft for not returning the gemstone'.

You just never know what a jury will do. I may have told about this already, but I served on a murder trial where the guy actually confessed in open court and we ended up in a hung jury because of 2 holdouts for self-defense, not murder or manslaughter. The guy that was shot was 1) unarmed, 2) in the doorway of his home with one hand on the doorframe and the other on the storm door holding it open and yelling at the guy leaving, 3) the shooter was all the way out to his car. He testified to all this and then said, "He called me a ***** *****, I reached into my glove box, got my gun and shot him." All he had to do was get in and leave.

Go figure.