Testimony is Evidence
There’s something that’s been annoying me for the last few days — in addition to the all-too-common horrible treatment of women: Politicians using phrases like “There’s no evidence” and journalists asking questions like “Isn’t it problematic that Ford can’t produce any evidence?”
Because testimony is evidence in a court of law. And eyewitness testimony — the sworn statements of someone who actually witnessed the crime — is the highest grade of evidence there is: it’s direct evidence. Someone who was there at the time of the crime saw it directly, and is providing evidence to that effect. It’s not hearsay, and it’s not circumstantial evidence. Although despite the objections of TV actors in court dramas, even circumstantial evidence — without any direct evidence at all — can serve to convict someone of a crime.
In addition to the myth of circumstantial evidence having no legitimacy or value, there’s also the trope of unreliable eyewitness testimony. That widespread generalization is based almost entirely on cases where an eyewitness incorrectly identified a total stranger, often from within a group of other total strangers, as the perpetrator. And the criminal acts may have also been committed at a distance, or in very low light, or under other less-than-optimal observational circumstances. And yet a witness manages to convince themselves —or the police manage to convince a witness — that this person or that person was the perp.
But Dr. Christine Blasey Ford has testified that she knew Brett Kavanaugh. He was not a stranger that she had to pick out of a lineup. And there was no hurdle of distance to overcome; he was on top of her, and his hands were on her.
So every time someone with the GOP says “there’s no evidence,” they are, in effect, lying. And every time a journo implies that “no evidence has been presented,” that’s tantamount to repeating the lie. This isn’t just semantics.
I’ve heard reporters for pretty much every media outlet I’ve monitored this week providing this free service to the GOP, helping them to falsely delegitimize Ford’s testimony — Ford’s direct evidence.
The next time you see an article or hear or watch a story in which a reporter does this, maybe you can take a moment to file a complaint with them, and with their managing editor. The GOP is unlikely to change the way in which they use the term “evidence” during this nomination process. But at the very least, journalists need to get this right.
A lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court is at stake.
