The Truth of the Matter - Evidence

The Truth of the Matter - Evidence

by Shawn K. Inlow

I must apologize to the class.  I've been away for almost a month.  Truth be told, I had a few construction projects going on around the ranch, and, at long last - today - Penelec finally put in our bi-directional meter, allowing our solar array to provide power back to the grid.

I talk about that in a column called "Don't Talk About It, Be About It" over on my site at www.cultureandcriticism.com.  Sidenote: it is FUN to watch your meter run backwards.

I hope you all didn't abuse the substitute while I was away.  Let's open up our textbooks and review chapters one and two.  It might be advisable to open up both the following stories in other tabs so you can compare them, since we've been away so long.

We've been doing a series here on X+Y called "The Truth of the Matter."  We're after the facts, friends, and they're slippery little shits these days.  The goal is to get everyone trying to develop better critical thinking skills.

You will remember our first discussion in this series was about how "Sources" inform facts.  

In that part, we had a Latino man arrive at Altoona P.D. in a car stolen from Miami, Florida, and confess to the armed robbery of the Altoona Quickie-Go more than a year prior.  We provided you with a fictitious news account of this and arrived at the determination that the news story was factual but certainly not illuminating.  Later, with a tiny bit of digging and only two added sentences, the story became more thorough and raised still more questions.

You will remember our second discussion was about how "Credibility" informs these sources.  The more sources you have for something, and the more believable they are, the better off the critical thinker is.  

In that part,  we introduced doubt.  A suspicious person was found near the scene of the crime on that fateful night. One of his boots fit perfectly in the fleeing felon's frozen footprints in the snow.  We met the victim, who was rattled that night, but still denied the show-up suspect was the thief.

Today, we're building on the two prior columns to add yet another tool to our arsenal of critical thinking:  EVIDENCE.  So the math is beginning to look like this: Critical Thinking =  Sources + Credibility + Evidence.  Let me introduce you to some of my rowdy friends...

    "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan

    "Evidence is the currency of justice." - unattributed legal maxim

    "Never ignore the evidence you find just because it doesn't fit your expectations." - Sherlock Holmes

It is by no mistake that I choose great scientific, legal and detective minds as our hallmarks.  Science, the Judiciary and the Law are designed to weigh matters of truth.  Therefore, we hope our information, in fact any information, should gain refinement in these systems.  Let's start adding things up!

1. We found a stolen car from the Juniata neighborhood just a block away from the Quickie-Go the next morning.  We found a blanket from the stolen car along the path where the robber fled.

2. We found a suspicious actor another block from the Quickie-Go at 3:30 a.m., in the snow, mere minutes after the robbery.

3. We found that the suspect had a number of unusual items in his inside jean jacket pockets including a strange amount of loose change.

4. We found that the suspicious actor could not be identified as the thief by the victim, but that one of his boots fit perfectly inside the robber's frozen footprint.

In the morning after the robbery at the Quickie-Go, A.P.D. was flooded with petty burglary calls in the Juniata neighborhood.  It seems garages and cars had been gotten into overnight.  It turns out that the stolen car a block from the Quickie-Go had been stolen from only a few blocks away in among these other crimes.

The A.P.D. believed all these crimes were connected.

During the investigation Detective Dan Dare went back to the scene and began to collect evidence; in particular, impressions of the boot prints left behind.  But then the detective did an unusual thing by measuring the distance between the footprints as the robber fled.  By measuring the gait of the criminal, the detective could conceivably guess the physical height of the robber.

Later, the detective went to the suspect's home in the same Juniata neighborhood with a search warrant.  During his interview, Triple D noted the suspect's body-motions picked up a serious physical "tick" when a question was asked about his whereabouts the prior evening.  He retrieved the suspect's boots and placed them into evidence.  He noted the suspect was currently unemployed.  He noted the suspect's height at 6' 2".

Later still, the detective retrieved the suspect's garbage from the curb.  Going through it, the detective found numerous overdue or unpaid bills.  

While it was also shown that the defendant had no prior criminal history, curiously or not, the suspect soon disappeared from Pennsylvania.  His wife said he'd gone down south looking for work.

While all of these facts are in evidence, one can begin to put together a theory of the case.  Still, with the victim, herself, plainly saying the suspect did not commit the crime, how is such a case to be brought?  What do the sources, their credibility and the associated facts say about this larger idea of The Truth of the Matter?

Remember, police need to be able to prove a case beyond a shadow of a doubt to 12 doubtful jurors. 

We already know how this story ends.

The case froze.  Dan Dare believed he had the case solved, but he also thought he could not prove it.  Until one day, more than a year later, Roberto Dominguez drove to the police station and confessed.

Dan Dare came to work that day and was advised that a guy had come in and confessed to the Quickie-Go robbery.  Dan Dare's mind was suddenly alive to new possibilities.  Looking in on the interrogation, Detective Dan noted that Dominguez struggled to describe the crime.  He explained he got key details wrong because he was high on drugs at the time and then fled back to Florida afterward.

Dan Dare was ordered to file the charges in the case and to close out the robbery and the associated spate of early morning burglaries of the prior winter.   Dan did so, but not before going, back to the Chief.

"I can't sign this, Chief," said Dan.

"How do you mean, Dan," said the Chief?

"I think he did a number of crimes, Chief, open and shut.  But I doubt he committed the robbery," said Dan.  "Chief, I think he might have read about it.  Or heard about it somehow.  And I think it flies in the face of common sense, but I think he wants to be in prison."

"Can you prove it, Dan?" asked the chief.  "That he did not do the robbery?"

"Possibly," said Dan.  "But by the same token, I probably can't convict the guy I think did do the crime.  We need to know why this suspect came 1,200 miles to confess, Chief."

"Wrap it up, Dan," said the Chief.  "Yer' spinnin' yer wheels.  Clear the cases.  That's an order."

While Detective Dan was processing the now accused.  He noted his height as only 5 feet tall.  High on drugs or not, Dominguez was physically incapable of making the kind of tracks left at the scene.  He was too short.

So there.  I've given you a pretty slippery case, have I not, class?  It's pop-quiz time.  If we go now into this case file and start to hand out grades from 1 to 5 with 5 being the goddamned Lone Ranger and 1 being Snidely Whiplash, what are your grades going to be?

What do you think of the victim?  Is she honest?  Believable?  Do the facts in evidence back her story?

What do you think of the suspect?  Is he honest?  Credible?  Do the facts favor him?

What do you think of the convicted?  Honest?  Credible?  Factual?

What do you think of the police?  Honest?  Credible?  How are they on the evidence?  

The Truth of the Matter is tricky.  In our modern times, with information lying in bits and pieces all around you, you need to be able to trust your sources, preferably as many sources as possible, their relative credibility, and you need to hold them up to the applicable facts if you want to practice good critical thinking.

This was just a dumb police beat story from a newspaper, but look where it traveled if you asked enough questions.  The trick now is to carry these concepts into the world wide web, onto your facebook, out onto your browser on your phone, and become a sensei at asking questions, knocking down bullshit.

You can turn your papers in at the end of the class, kids.  The bell is about to ring.  Next week, we're going to turn our newly acquired skills on a hot topic in the news.  We'll be examining one report, maybe against another.  Maybe take something by Rachel Maddow and the same topic by Brett Baer, or something like that, and we'll identify the tangible differences and talk about why those differences, if they are there at all, exist!

Until Next Time, Enjoy!