Occasionally, I like to write blog posts about different topics related to my university degree. For those of you who don’t know, my name is Beth and I am in my final year studying Law with Politics. One of the modules I’ve recently finished is Criminal Evidence. This has been a fascinating module for me and so I thought I would share the different types of evidence investigators use in trials.
Of course, this is going to be a brief summary. If I went into lots of detail, we would be here until 2027. I hope you enjoy this post regardless! Let’s get to it!
What is evidence?
Evidence is any information presented in a trial with the aim of helping a jury to decide whether a crime has been committed by a defendant or not. In a trial, the prosecution and defence have a requirement to present evidence they have collected that supports their testimonies.
In terms of exhibits, they are documents or other thing shown to a witness and referred to by the witness in evidence.
Of course, there are laws that govern whether a piece of evidence can be used in court. This is known as whether a piece of evidence is admissible or inadmissible in court. There are certain criteria that need to be followed but for the sake of this post, I won’t be going into that.
So let’s get into the types of evidence, or classification of evidence! I will say that these classifications can overlap with one another.
Direct Evidence
Direct evidence is evidence that is known personally to a witness for a variety of reasons. They could have a personal experience that involves seeing something they personally saw, heard or touched. For example, a witness may have seen a crime being committed. It may also involve hearing a crime being committed.
Circumstantial Evidence
Circumstantial evidence is evidence whereby conclusions can be drawn from information or a set of circumstances. Circumstantial evidence is not necessarily weaker than direct evidence. If there are a number of circumstances, this can lead to the jury or the court entering a guilty verdict. An example of circumstantial evidence is as follows. There may have been a robbery at a jewellery shop at a specific time at 3pm. A witness may then have seen someone rushing out of the shop quickly 5 minutes later. Conclusions can then be drawn from that.
Primary Evidence
Primary evidence is also known as best evidence. It is essentially the best available evidence that shows the existence of an object. It can take the form of the object itself, like a weapon of some sort. However, it can also be in the form of a statement that is substantial. The statement may be needed to prove that what is contained within the evidence matches what the prosecution are claiming says is contained in the evidence.
Secondary Evidence
Secondary evidence is evidence which has been reproduced from an original document. This could be a photocopy of an original document. However, secondary evidence can exist in the form of an oral statement about the contents of a piece of evidence. It is not reliable as primary evidence but it can still be admissible in court, as long as its validity can be reliably proven.
Expert Evidence
Expert evidence is pretty much what it says on the tin. This is evidence whereby an expert comes in to explain a subject that the court or jury don’t have knowledge in. For example, in cases where there is scientific subjects, an expert is able to come into court to explain this in a logical and concise way.
Forensic Evidence
Forensic evidence is evidence usually found at the scene of a crime that needs to have testing done on it. This testing needs to be carried out by forensic experts to be admissible.
And that’s it! Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to read this post and I will see you soon for another one!
Beth
Beth Olivia 