Case law and legal doctrineCriminal lawFifteen years quashed: when circumstantial evidence falls short of the required certainty

The facts and the procedural route

• The victim assaulted the defendant inside a dwelling
• The confrontation continued on the staircase and in the entrance hall of the building
• The defendant suffered extremely serious injuries: neck wounds affecting the jugular veins and a chest injury with pneumothorax
• The victim died as a result of eleven stab wounds
• Jury Court, Provincial Court of Murcia, Second Section: fifteen years for murder
• High Court of Justice: conviction quashed and defendant acquitted
• An appeal in cassation to the Supreme Court remains available

The legal keys

• Circumstantial evidence is admissible but requires an unequivocal inference
• Indicia carrying strong doses of ambiguity are not enough
• An alternative hypothesis consistent with innocence bars conviction
• Contradiction between the gravity of the defendant’s injuries and the capacity to inflict eleven stab wounds
• Presumption of innocence under Article 24 of the Constitution
• Application of the principle in dubio pro reo

The admissibility of circumstantial evidence and its limit

No court disputes that a conviction may rest on circumstantial evidence where direct evidence is lacking. What is always in dispute is the quality of the inference. Settled doctrine requires the indicia to be fully established, to be plural or, if single, of particular probative force, to be concomitant with the act and interrelated. Above all, it requires the reasoning leading from the indicia to the inferred fact to be unequivocal, that is, not to admit a different conclusion with equal reasonableness.

Ambiguity as a ground for acquittal

It is precisely that requirement which fails here. The Chamber describes the indicia relied on by the jury as carrying strong doses of ambiguity and equivocation. The genetic traces found on the weapon and the biological marks admitted alternative explanations consistent with innocence, and the absence of evidence about the involvement of third parties could not make good that insufficiency. Where the same data support two incompatible accounts with similar solidity, the inference ceases to be evidence for the prosecution.

The internal contradiction in the prosecution case

The element the court regards as most significant is factual, and is particularly instructive for defence technique. The defendant presented extremely serious injuries, affecting the jugular veins, together with a pneumothorax. The Chamber finds an incompatibility that is hard to overcome between that clinical picture and the physical capacity to inflict eleven fatal stab wounds. This is not a generic doubt but an internal contradiction in the prosecution account, established by expert evidence.

In dubio pro reo: a rule of decision, not of assessment

The ruling concludes by applying the principle in dubio pro reo. Its scope deserves clarification, because it is frequently confused with the presumption of innocence. The presumption of innocence is a rule of judgment requiring sufficient evidence for the prosecution; in dubio pro reo is a rule of decision operating where, such evidence existing, the court does not reach conviction. Here the two converge: the indicia were neither conclusive nor capable of excluding alternative scenarios.