<p>Pizzagirl, what I suggested yesterday was that they didn’t have to show she was some kind of junkie or abuser to make their case – the victim’s legitimate use of Adderall or other prescription drugs may have rendered her more vulnerable. Which doesn’t make the kill not guilty of homicide, but may make him guilty of a less serious form of homicide than murder one. (Of course, I have to admit that the defense case probably gets stronger if she WAS abusing the drugs beyond the prescription limits, so they would certainly want to investigate if that was the case as well.)</p>
<p>Truth: Truth is only one of the values in our criminal justice system. And I’m not talking only about namby-pamby ACLU values, either. A huge value is administrability. More than ninety percent of cases get resolved by plea bargains, not trials. You think plea bargains have a lot to do with finding the truth, on either side? And finality. When people are on death row, and have always maintained their innocence, they still often have to fight for years to get DNA testing that was not available at the time of their trial, and that could prove their innocence, because generally convictions are final. And if someone pled guilty rather that go to trial? Fuggedaboudit. Maybe a sympathetic governor will do something, but the legal system won’t.</p>
<p>Most evidence of anything is only probabilistic, not definitive. Can you imagine if courts had to apply the same proof standards that, for example, the FDA uses in drug approvals? The FDA really, really cares about truth, and even it still gets things wrong much of the time, because they don’t want to wait decades for all the evidence to emerge.</p>
<p>Bonnie: I just realized that mathmom would have known Bonnie Garland, as I did. That case is a decent object lesson in truth. There was never any doubt about who killed Bonnie, or how, or in the simplest terms why. The fight in that situation was about when you stop talking about the truth, how you cut off thinking about truth. The people who were outraged about Rick’s manslaughter conviction didn’t want truth, they wanted none of the truth to matter, except for a few things. And I’m not saying they were wrong, either.</p>