(1)
Observation. (i) A witness give evidence of what they observed. (ii)
Some machines, such as security cameras, observe and record their
observations. (iii) A judge observes every day facts (referred to as judicial
notice), observes some things in court, for example, the height of a witness,
and observes real evidence that is put before the court.
(2)
Induction. First, there is a matter of terminology. Lawyers frequently
refer to proof by induction as proof by inference. Inference is a general term
for proof by some form of reasoning. This account uses the term ‘induction’
because it is concerned to explain the nature of the process. Now for the
explanation. Assume that a court finds that Fact A occurred and Fact C
occurred. Assume that something happened between the occurrence of Fact A
and the occurrence of Fact C. Assume also that it is common enough that
Fact A, Fact B and Fact C happen in sequence. In this case the court may
conclude, relying on induction, that the missing facts is Fact B. Facts A, B and
C often happened together in the past and they are happening together now.
(3)
Deduction. A witness
observes something, call it Y, at the scene of
some incident. A scientific expert may give evidence that because Y occurred,
X also occurred before hand because X is the sole cause of Y.
(4)
Deeming Provisions. There are legal rules that deem some facts to be
true. There are three general classes –
where parties agree on some facts,
where on party admits a fact to be true and where some presumptions of
evidence require certain facts to be treated as true. The fourth class involves a
provision in a statute that deems some stipulated fact to be true.
Model
“Write that down” the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly wrote
down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and reduced
the answers to shillings and pence.
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There is a model for finding facts that consists of three processes or steps:
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Step 1 Versions of Truth. Parties present their versions of truth to
the court.
#
Step 2 Probability of Proof. The court assesses how probable it
is that each version if true.
#
Step 3 Standard of Truth. The court decided whether the party
bringing the case has proved their case to the degree or standard of truth that
is legally required. This is referred to in law as the standard of proof.
Step 1: Versions of Truth
When parties disagree on the facts they will allege competing versions of truth.
Obviously this disagreement is the cause of their dispute. To commence the
process of resolving the dispute parties need to put their versions of truth to
the court. There are three means of doing this:
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Lewis Carroll Alice in Wonderland Chapter 11
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