How are we to picture, or portray, the effect of evidence on (the hypothesis of) the existence or non-existence of some state of affairs?

For example, how are we to portray or picture the effect of the evidence

"David Defendant's escape from jail"

on the hypothesis

"David Defendant's guilt of the crime of burglary"?

You don’t have to construct diagrams or charts. (You are, of course, free to do so. I encourage you to do so if you wish to do so.¹) I have used diagrams, or charts, in an attempt to describe some of the things you need to think about in order to think carefully and systematically about evidence and its implications. But there is no magic in such diagrams: they are essentially crutches for thought. Whether or not you use diagrams, the essential objective is to think carefully, in an orderly way, and logically about evidence and related issues.

It is important not to exaggerate the power of diagrams. It is almost never the case that only some one diagram correctly captures the possible and plausible arguments that can be made about and from some collection of evidence. That’s because the judgments that people make about possible, plausible, and important inferences from evidence are infected with a lot of subjectivity. The arguments you make – and any diagrams you use to describe or paraphrase them – are usually representations of the way you think about evidence. Reasonable and rational people often have very different thoughts about any collection of evidence.

• Nonetheless, it is often both useful and important to imagine the arguments that other people (e.g., opposing lawyers, jurors) may make about the evidence in a case. You have to meet arguments made by opposing lawyers. You have to understand and anticipate questions and notions that a judge may have. And ultimately you have to persuade decision makers and fact finders such as jurors.