On The Nature Of Evidence

[RGJ]

A book I greatly admire is "Popular Crime" by noted baseball statistical revolutionary Bill James. He does have a chapter in it about the Borden case...his main, limited, careful finding is that it couldn't have been Lizzie, because she wasn't covered in blood.

That aside, another aspect of his book that is interesting is the weighting of evidence. As he does with baseball statistics, Bill suggests a formula reducing evidence to math and adding up whether it reaches conviction level.

So...I don't have the book in front of me. But it seems that this debate could greatly benefit from something like that, because pieces of evidence are whipped out like pistols to shoot down propositions, and they aren't all alike.

Three pieces, by way of example...

-- Lizzie's testimony... If you are examining her direct or conspiratorial guilt, it has a difference twist than just saying "she said she heard the lock being opened by Bridget." More may be discerned by third party evidence of whether she is caught in a lie or a truth than by the evidence she claims. In terms of a "truth", it is a little value in and of itself. Furthermore, once someone is a suspect on trial for her life, or aeven a muttered target of suspicion (Morse, Emma) their testimony must he heavily scrutinized.

-- A policeman testifying he arrived at the scene and found the cellar door locked. This is a high quality piece of evidence to me. The man is an authority, with no apparent reason to lie under oath, and no apparent motive for the facts being one way or the other.

-- The much maligned newspaper accounts. Yes, papers were very competitive, and they weren't that professional in that time. However, most aren't at the "make something up" tabloid level, either. And they would, as journalists and publications, lose readers if they kepot getting cr@p wrong. It is also true that some took an editorial "slant" and stuck with it. However, they were there to "report" and would, in the broad strokes of things, not have a dog in the fight other than hoping for sensationalism.

-- testimony. Layman don't realize how much of the criminal system runs on testimony, and how powerful it is. If you have ever been under oath, it is a surprising weight on your shoulders. As long as someone isn't directly involved as a perpetrator or conspirator, I think eyewitness testimony (or statements to the police) are very compelling but often tossed away. Eg: Dr. Handy describing the wagon and "pale man" in gfront of Borden's house.

-- expert forensic testimony from state. In terms of strict material facts, I give this a high mark. Number of hatchet blows, no prussic acid in stomach, etc.

-- expert testimony. e.g.: guessestimate on time of death, psychology opinions, etc. Damn near worthless, unless you are looking for the biggest whore in the state at that moment. Bought and paid for.

Anyway, just putting it out there.

[Curryong]

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/evidence

The short section on expert witnesses, especially physicians, may be of interest to you.

[irina]

I have kind of messed around with a mathematical approach to the case for quite awhile. I'm not a math expert but I have a basic grasp about averaging things. I don't have any firm conclusions though except that there seems to have been about 30 minutes the morning of August 4 that Lizzie doesn't cover in her reported activities. My figure always comes out at 30 minutes and that freaks me out and I can hear Curryong and others saying, "That because she was........"

We have quite a lot of research with medical experts on blood spatter and such. The killer probably wasn't heavily spattered. I'm curious if the dress Lizzie wore when Mrs. Churchill, etc. came over, was the same one she was wearing IF/when she killed Andrew, and if there were small blood specks no one saw. After she changed into the pink wrapper there is not much reason to question dresses as one eventually was burned and the silk wasn't worn that August morning.

I believe, as I think others do, that there wasn't a lot of spatter or splatter, that this was not the equivalent of the Fall River chainsaw massacre. The victims died fairly quick and hearts stopped arterial pressure among other things. Look specifically at Abby's wounds. There was the "flap" to the side of her head, probably a frontal attack. I picture the assailant aiming for the centre of her face/forehead and Abby ducking to the side, thus only receiving a glancing blow. I believe she turned to her right all the way, exposing her back to the assailant and received the slash below the neck on the back of her shoulder after which she was face down on the floor. There were a couple whacks more or less to the top of her head. There was hair stuck just above the mopboard in a straight line with the top of her head. I believe these hits came next with the assailant standing over her. Then whether or not the assailant straddled the body, kneeling/sitting/crouching/whatever, the horrific damage to the right side of Abby's ear region I assume was done by the assailant swinging the hatchet, possibly not all that hard, in a right to left semi arc so that blood dripped from the axe in line with the partial arc but didn't necessarily get onto the assailant. The dresser had blood drops and there was hair on the bed as well as the "smooches" of blood on the cover.

I think Andrew too was attacked with the assailant for the most part swinging at an angle.

So I don't see it like the TV movie with Elizabeth Montgomery raising the hatchet high overhead and bringing it down with tremendous force. Maybe not even once. I surely don't see it a bunch of times. I doubt the hatchet was EVER raised ABOVE the assailant's head which would surely explain no blood drops in Lizzie's hair IF she was the assailant.

I rather imagine the most blood staining would have been from blood running down the hatchet handle onto a sleeve if the assailant wore sleeves. I would expect hand(s) and wrist(s) to be the most stained. If the assailant moved around much near Andrew's body I would think there could be transfer blood or blood on the bottom of shoes though possibly not the latter as the bulk of blood seeped downward through the sofa. If the killer never actually entered the sitting room but struck from the diningroom/sittingroom doorway I suppose none of this would matter. Concerning Abby the most of the blood was the "pool" under her head/face.

[MysteryReader]

Irina,

You can always do a few experiments to see what is the closest- hatchet up over the head, hatchet swinging from right to left in a semi arc, etc. and post your results.