A Nice Illustration Of An Odd Rule Of Evidence

From a comment at Firedoglake:

How about when Wilson was asked about the outburst one of the first things out of his miserable pie hole was, “It was totally spontaneous.” He was never asked if it was planned or spontaneous; he volunteered that information right off the bat. That’s what made me first believe it was all planned. And who better to do it than a piece of work like Wilson?

One of the important rolls played by a jury at trial is to disbelieve evidence. The jury is supposed to watch the witnesses and, using their common sense and everyday experience, decide whether or not the witness is telling the truth. If they decide that the witness is lying, they can disregard that testimony.

But the fact that they decide that the witness is lying about a particular point is not evidence of the opposite. The usual example given is a trial in which whether it was raining at a particular time is important. If one party testifies that it was not raining, the jury can disbelieve him. But that is not evidence that it was raining; the other side still needs to enter its own evidence on that point, which the jury -- again -- can believe or disbelieve.

I think, though, that the comment illustrates a better example. We are free to disbelieve Joe Wilson's statement that his outburst was spontaneous. But that disbelief is not evidence of a plan to embarrass the president.