Quote:
Originally Posted by witchfan
Interesting to note this is a very fictional theme unique to mystery novels. I'm no legal expert, but... in most cases, a crime is legally defined to be composed of two elements: "actus reus" (Latin for "guilty act") and "mens rea" (Latin for "guilty mind"). "Actus reas" refers to, of course, the act itself, whereas the mens rea refers to the intent (I think; the legal definition might be a little different). Knowing the motive is very helpful in proving both. Thus, finding the motive is very much in the interest of the prosecution. Without a provable motive, non-conclusive evidence loses a lot of its worth. (But of course, without a howdunnit, a motive is quite worthless).
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Having presented evidence to juries, and having talked to juries, and having been both frequently surprised and constantly frustrated by the decisions juries make, I wouldn't even
begin to compare a courtroom to the mystery genre or even to courtroom TV.
Juries care a remarkable degree about evidence, and they take the process seriously. Believe it or not, motive arguments rarely work without evidentiary support (and even circumstantial evidence will beat the old "I had no reason to kill him" chestnut). Juries really do care about proof.
Having said that, juries also care a lot about
theater. They work off their gut reaction to witnesses, even if they don't acknowledge this. Most jurors, for example, give greater weight to the side that presents a police officer's testimony. This has held true for me even in cases where the officer did not witness the crime (he was only called to testify that he'd written a report on the crime and issued a citation for it, nothing more). A person who
looks shifty or
acts smug turns jurors off, even if he doesn't say anything obviously inconsistent.
The best example in Umineko I can point to of the "juror effect" is probably George. People didn't like him because he seemed shady. There wasn't any evidence, but people didn't believe a lot of what he said. Even though you could provably demonstrate that George couldn't commit not only many of the murders in the various games, but
most of them. Why? Well, he doesn't sit right with people. It's an emotional response. People didn't trust him.
Why did opinion on Natsuhi change? We saw how tortured she was and how hard she tried in spite of her problems. Sympathy. Nothing about her reliability as a witness or the information she could provide really changed, but many people did a complete 180 (from suspecting her involvement to believing her perhaps the first
completely innocent character, and this in spite of her role in a coverup!).
Juries are a strange beast, but believe it or not, motive is not nearly as important as the seemingly contradictory factors of gut emotional response and hard evidence. If I knew why that was, I'd have a perfect trial record. But I don't. And none of the other trial attorneys I work with do either.