Evidence in Criminal Cases: Circumstantial, Forensic, and Automatic Recordings

Vocabulary flashcards covering legal rules, principles, and case precedents regarding circumstantial evidence, DNA and fingerprint analysis, and automatic recordings in criminal law.

Direct evidence

Evidence, such as eyewitness accounts and confessions by an accused, that is directly probative of an issue in dispute.

Circumstantial evidence

Evidence that is not in itself directly probative of an issue, but is indirectly incriminating (such as forensic evidence, reactions of the accused, or possession of incriminating items) and requires the court to draw an inference supporting that issue.

Adminicles of circumstantial evidence

Individual pieces of circumstantial evidence from at least two sources that build up a picture which, when taken together, allows an inference of guilt to be drawn even without direct evidence.

Norval v HM Advocate 1978 JC 70

A case demonstrating that an armed robbery conviction can rest purely on circumstantial evidence, including a getaway car matching the accused's vehicle, red anti-climb paint on the car seat, and a recovered bag containing weapons and paint-stained gloves.

Broadley v HM Advocate [2005] HCJAC 96

A murder appeal that was allowed because circumstantial evidence was insufficient to establish how the accused caused the victim to fall from a 20th-floor window, the only fingerprints found on the sill belonged to the victim, and suicide was a more legitimate inference.

Smith v HM Advocate [2008] HCJAC 7

A case where a conviction for being concerned in the supply of drugs was quashed because finding £81,300 in heroin-contaminated banknotes was insufficient to infer participation in drug supply in the absence of drugs or dealing paraphernalia.

Welsh v HM Advocate 1992 SLT 193

A culpable homicide case ruling that there is no requirement as a matter of law for a specific statistical probability threshold to be reached before a jury can convict on DNA profiling, provided there is sufficient evidence for their assessment.

Langan v HM Advocate 1989 JC 132

A case holding that evidence of a single fingerprint left in wet blood on a kitchen sink tap in the victim's house was sufficient to convict the accused of murder when no innocent explanation was offered and the accused denied ever being in the house.

Maguire v HM Advocate 2003 SLT 1307

A robbery appeal where conviction was upheld because DNA found on skin-like material inside a jumper-sleeve mask at the crime scene provided sufficient evidence in the absence of an innocent explanation by the accused.

Reid v HM Advocate 2016 SCCR 233

A housebreaking case holding that a cigarette butt with a $1\text{ in }1\text{ billion}$ DNA match, found in reasonable condition near the entry/exit point, was sufficient evidence to infer the accused smoked it during the crime absent an alternative explanation.

Cameron v HM Advocate 2013 SCCR 107

A case confirming that an undated fingerprint found on a living room door of a private residence constituted a sufficient circumstantial case for robbery because the victim did not know the accused and no innocent explanation was offered.

Corroboration in DNA evidence (Professor Pete Duff)

The legal view that corroboration is satisfied when two separate scientific experts testify that the probability of DNA belonging to anyone other than the accused is sufficiently low, providing two distinct sources of testimony.

McPherson v HM Advocate 2019 JC 171

A case establishing that when an accused's fingerprint or DNA is found on an article connected with the crime, insufficiency of evidence arises only if an inference that the accused committed the crime is unreasonable.

Slater v Vannet 1997 SCCR 578

A case demonstrating the limits of drawing incriminating inferences from fingerprint evidence when found on a moveable object in a public place to which the accused could have had innocent access.

Dunbar v HM Advocate 2015 SCCR 186

A drug supply conviction quashed because DNA on an envelope seal with a $1\text{ in }4\text{ million}$ match could match 7 or 8 other UK males, could have arrived via secondary transfer, and lacked proof that it was deposited by licking.

Gubinas v HM Advocate 2018 JC 45

A full bench decision establishing that once the provenance of an automatic recording is proven, it becomes real evidence in causa that the court or jury can use to establish facts, irrespective of concurring or conflicting testimony.

Shuttleton v Orr 2019 JC 98

A case confirming that when the provenance of an automatic recording is established by corroborated evidence, no further corroboration of its substance is required to provide sufficient evidence of identification or the actus reus.