ZeroIntelligence.net

Tosheena Robinson-Blair of The Daily News Journal of Murfreesboro, Tennessee reports on a student’s expulsion based purely on eyewitness testimony of two other students who reported the expelled student had brought a gun to school the previous day. The incident took place at Oakland High School in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

According to Rutherford County Schools spokesman James Evans, Oakland Principal Butch Vaughn found the two students, who reported the incident, to be credible.

“This matter went through all levels of appeal, and they didn’t overturn it either, based on the evidence presented. The reason why we couldn’t find the gun is they reported it the day after they saw it,” Evans said.

“With zero tolerance you don’t have to have a history. We understand that students from time to time make up stories about other students, but that’s what the principals are there for — to determine if the students are telling the truth or not.”

The principal has apparently determined that the two accusers were telling the truth, while the accused was not. That’s enough, even when school board members find themselves admittedly uncomfortable about the (lack of) evidence:

However, at the time, school board member and vice chair, Mark Byrnes, expressed his reluctance about taking one child’s word over another.

This case marked only the second time this school year that a parent made an appeal to the board.

“I was not completely comfortable with the evidence against the student. On the other hand though, in court, eyewitness testimony is often sufficient to get a conviction. Ultimately, I drew that parallel,” Byrnes said Monday.

Unfortunately, Mr. Byrnes has drawn a parallel that is inaccurate. Michael Dorn, Vice Dean and Professor of Law at Columbia University (at least in 2001,) wrote an article for FindLaw on the reliability of eyewitness testimony when compared to circumstantial evidence:

The conventional wisdom, particularly among non-lawyers, is that circumstantial evidence is generally less reliable than eyewitness testimony. People sometimes say that a case is “only circumstantial” to mean that the evidence is weak. A strong case, according to this view, includes the testimony of an eyewitness.

In fact, contrary to popular opinion, circumstantial evidence is often extremely reliable. Blood of the victim that makes a DNA match with blood found on the defendant’s clothing, credit card records that place the defendant at the scene of the crime, and ballistics analysis that shows a bullet removed from the victim to have been fired from the defendant’s gun are all forms of circumstantial evidence. Yet, in the absence of a credible allegation of police tampering, such evidence is usually highly reliable and informative.

Worse yet, it appears that the testimony of the accusers, while found by Principal Butch Vaughn to be credible, could well have been part of a verbal altercation, giving those accusers a reason to lie. Back to the Daily New Journal’s article:

The student and his family allege that two classmates identified the sophomore after he made some disparaging remarks about the “gang” they were allegedly in.

“That day my son said something about their gang, that very same day one of the boys left a threatening message on his cell phone,” the boy’s mother said. “My son played the message to the school’s resource officer on Monday when they checked him for the gun based on those boys’ word.”

Something doesn’t sound right here. Mr. Byrnes is drawing invalid parallels to criminal law. No one has turned up an actual weapon. The cell phone messages casting doubt on the motivations of the accusers appears to have been ignored. A similar case in nearby La Vergne High School involving six accusers but no found weapon was discarded.

I have invited the mother and student (via the reporter) to comment further. I’ve also left messages for Mr. Vaughn and Mr. Byrnes to discuss their side of this situation and explain the inconsistencies, if they can. As of yet, none of them have returned my calls.