Faced with a controversy, who is a person to believe? The expeditious and common answer is to believe the person who "seems" most believable. But that can lead to a mob mentality or herd activity. Political tacticians as well as news media and advertising types depend on this. lawyers depend on this as they do their best to sway juries. In the all-important sense of the command by Jesus for righteous behavior, building and maintaining positive relationships is of huge importance. So, learning to evaluate "both sides of the story" becomes a ital tool in the Christian's life.

1. Oral evidence: The facts or story as orally presented by both fact witnesses (caught up in the event) and expert (someone the Court allows presented as an expert) witnesses (who not only can lie or embellish their stories but can forget, have misperceptions, or literally "see" it differently because their life holds a differing perspective). A pathologist performing an autopsy on a murder victim is a "fact witness" as to the details of the autopsy; the pathologist might also be presented to the court as an expert witness (the judge will determine if the pathologist is or is not). This is eyewitness or auditory witness (I heard it) evidence. Opinion and non-opinion testimony can also be presented in recordings or by hear-say. Investigators/jury members expertly or just innately read the body language of the witness as a help in deciding truthfulness of the witness. For any category of evidence, our legal system (in its adversarial approach to arriving at justice) tends to require testing and strengthening of a position or opinion by asking for corroborating (agreeing from another angle) evidence and/or rebuttal (disagreeing from another angle) evidence.
   
   
2. Real, concrete, objective evidence: actual things such as the gun, the knife, drops of blood, specimens for analysis (but these can not only be deliberately tampered with, they can be mixed up or improperly tested, inadvertently). This can be scientific evidence or common, layperson evidence.
   
   
3. Documented evidence: writings or video or audio recordings...wills, suicide notes, cash register receipts, ATM slips (these types of evidence can be faked or setup). Contemporaneous (immediate) documentation should theoretically hold more weight than documentation created after the fact & much later following the event.
   
   
4. Demonstrative evidence: diagrams, exhibits, or many other means in which the information of the case can be lain before (portrayed to) investigators or a jury to help present a point of view.

1. Extremely weak opinion, example: "the findings are such that ___ cause and manner of death are not ruled out".
   
   
2. Very weak opinion, example: "the findings are possibly due to such and such". This type of terminology is very confusing because a 1 in 10 chance may be what this means to the average juror, but it may mean a one in a million chance to a scientist.
   
   
3. Weak opinion, example: "the findings are consistent with (or compatible with) such and such cause and manner of death". This is a vague and weak zone of 5 to 45% probability.
   
   
4. Less-weak opinion, example: "the findings are such that such and such cause and manner of death is probable." This terminology is weak because it legally indicates no more than barely more of a likelihood than the flip of a coin...no less than 51% probability.
   
   
5. Mildly strong opinion, example: "the findings indicate that it is far more likely than not that the death was caused by..." [This is legally considered to indicate a greater-than-50% probability.]
   
   
6. Stronger opinion, example: "the findings are such that there is a reasonable medical certainty that such and such is the cause and manner of death." Such terminology indicates an 80 to 100% probability.
   
   
7. Very strong opinion, example: "the findings are such that such and such cause and manner of death is beyond reasonable doubt." This indicates a 98 to 100% probability.
   
   
8. Strongest opinion, example: "the findings are such that such and such cause and manner of death are" ...."without a doubt,"..."absolutely certain"... "100% certain"...or, "I have CONCLUDED that such and such is the cause and manner of death."