1. This explanation requires a belief in the supernatural, a belief that Jesus had the supernatural power to rise from the dead in the first place.
ABDUCTIVE REASONING AND THE RESURRECTION
I limited the evidence to four modest claims about the resurrection and kept my explanatory options open to all the possibilities (both natural and supernatural). The last explanation (although it is a miraculous, supernatural explanation) suffers from the least number of liabilities and deficiencies. If we simply enter into the investigation without a preexisting bias against anything supernatural, the final explanation accounts for all of the evidence without any difficulty. The final explanation accounts for the evidence most simply and most exhaustively, and it is logically consistent (if we simply allow for the existence of God in the first place). The final explanation is also superior to the other accounts (given that it does not suffer from all the problems we see with the other explanations).
If we approach the issue of the resurrection in an unbiased manner (without the presuppositions described in the previous chapter) and assess it as we evaluated the dead-body scene, we can judge the possible explanations and eliminate those that are unreasonable. The conclusion that Jesus was resurrected (as reported in the Gospels) can be sensibly inferred from the available evidence. The resurrection is reasonable.
A TOOL FOR THE CALLOUT BAG, A TIP FOR THE CHECKLIST
Okay, let’s add another tool to our callout bag: an attitude about reason that will help us as we examine and discuss the claims of Christianity. Like other nonbelievers in our world today, I used to think of faith as the opposite of reason. In this characterization of the dichotomy, I believed that atheists were reasonable “freethinkers” while believers were simple, mindless drones who blindly followed the unreasonable teaching of their leadership. But if you think about it, faith is actually the opposite of unbelief, not reason. As I began to read through the Bible as a skeptic, I came to understand that the biblical definition of faith is a well-placed and reasonable inference based on evidence. I wasn’t raised in the Christian culture, and I think I have an unusually high amount of respect for evidence. Perhaps this is why this definition of faith comes easily to me. I now understand that it’s possible for reasonable people to examine the evidence and conclude that Christianity is true. While my skeptical friends may not agree on how the evidence related to the resurrection should be interpreted, I want them to understand that I’ve arrived at my conclusions reasonably.
As I speak around the country, I often encounter devoted, committed Christians who are hesitant to embrace an evidential faith. In many Christian circles, faith that requires evidential support is seen as weak and inferior. For many, blind faith (a faith that simply trusts without question) is the truest, most sincere, and most valuable form of faith that we can offer God. Yet Jesus seemed to have a high regard for evidence. In John 14:11, He told those watching Him to examine “the evidence of the miracles” (NIV) if they did not believe what He said about His identity. Even after the resurrection, Jesus stayed with His disciples for an additional forty days and provided them with “many convincing proofs” that He was resurrected and was who He claimed to be (Acts 1:2–3 NIV). Jesus understood the role and value of evidence and the importance of developing an evidential faith. It’s time for all of us, as Christians, to develop a similarly reasonable faith.
CASE NOTES
5. Judicial Council of California, Judicial Council of California Criminal Jury Instructions, CalCrim Section 104, accessed May 16, 2012, www.courts.ca.gov/partners/documents/calcrim_juryins.pdf.
6. For more information, see www.garyhabermas.com.
7. For more information, see www.risenjesus.com.
8. Gary Habermas and Mike Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2004), 47.
Chapter 3
Principle #3:
THINK “CIRCUMSTANTIALLY”
“I think we’re done with this one,” I said as I closed the cover of the red three-ring binder. I slipped it back onto the long shelf next to dozens of other red books in the homicide vault and looked at my partner. “Now I just have to tell Paula’s family.”
Our agency stores its cold cases next to our solved murders in a single storage room adjacent to the detective division. Solved homicides are stored in black binders, unsolved in red. The goal is to eventually fill the room with nothing but black binders. After a year with Paula’s case, I was frustrated that it was still in a red book.
Paula Robinson was murdered in the spring of 1988. She was a junior in high school, and her murder was a true whodunit. The crime scene told us a lot about what happened prior to her death but little about who was responsible. We knew she voluntarily allowed the suspect to enter her parent’s house. We knew that she had a sandwich with the killer, and he smoked a cigarette in the backyard. We also knew that the killer was with her in her bedroom where he tried to sexually assault her and eventually ended up killing her in a horrific rage. This crime scene was one of the worst in the history of our department.
While we knew a few things about the events leading up to the murder, we knew far less about the appearance and identity of the killer. Neighbors saw a young man leaving the residence following the crime, so we had a rough idea of how tall he was and about how much he weighed. But he was wearing a cap that covered his hair, and he fled so quickly that details related to his appearance were hard to come by. We did, however, recover a few of his hairs at the crime scene, and these hairs became our best lead.
The hair provided us with a partial DNA marker—not enough to enter into the statewide database, but enough to compare to anyone we might identify as a potential suspect. All we had to do was make a list of everyone and anyone who might be responsible for this and then go out and get his DNA. Sounds easy, right? Well, we spent a year identifying, locating, and then traveling around the country to collect DNA swabs from everyone we thought might have committed this crime. We swabbed thirty-four different men. All of them voluntarily agreed to be swabbed; we didn’t have to write a single search warrant. Why? Because none of them murdered Paula Robinson; none of them had anything to fear. In the end, we ran out of potential suspects. Nearly twenty-five years after the murder, we simply exhausted our leads in the case and found ourselves without any viable options. It was time to suspend the case once again.
I traveled out to see Paula’s mother one last time. Her hopes had been elevated when we reopened the case (and she learned that we might have a partial DNA marker). We tried to keep her expectations low, given the difficult nature of these kinds of cases, but she couldn’t help but get excited about the possibilities.
“Sometimes we have a suspect that fits the evidence and we’re able to put together a case, but this is not one of those situations,” I tried to explain. “I don’t need to have a DNA ‘hit’ in order to make a case, but in this situation, the DNA that we do have has actually eliminated everyone under consideration. I’m sorry.” Paula’s mother simply sat and wept.
In all my years working cold-case homicides, I’ve yet to encounter a case that was assisted by DNA. Most cold-case teams make a living with DNA hits, capitalizing on the latest technology and applying new science to old cases. I haven’t been that lucky. My experiences with the latest scientific advances have produced results like Paula’s case: a lot of work with no progress. Instead, I’ve been successful assessing cases that have little or no forensic evidence but are replete with what we call circumstantial evidence. I wish that Paula’s case was only one such example.
DIRECT AND CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
Evidence typically falls into two broad categories. Direct evidence is evidence that can prove something all by itself. In California, jurors are given the example of a witness who saw that it was raining outside the courthouse. Jurors are instructed, “If a witness testifies he
saw it raining outside before he came into the courthouse, that testimony is direct evidence that it was raining.”9 This testimony (if it is trustworthy) is enough, in and of itself, to prove that it is raining. On the other hand, circumstantial evidence (also known as indirect evidence) does not prove something on its own, but points us in the right direction by proving something related to the question at hand. This related piece of evidence can then be considered (along with additional pieces of circumstantial evidence) to figure out what happened. Jurors in California are instructed, “For example, if a witness testifies that he saw someone come inside wearing a raincoat covered with drops of water, that testimony is circumstantial evidence because it may support a conclusion that it was raining outside.”10 The more pieces of consistent circumstantial evidence, the more reasonable the conclusion. If we observed a number of people step out of the courthouse for a second, then duck back inside, soaked with little spots of water on their clothing, or saw more people coming into the courthouse, carrying umbrellas, and dripping with water, we would have several additional pieces of evidence that could be used to make the case that it was raining. The more cumulative the circumstantial evidence, the better the conclusion.
Most people tend to think that direct evidence is required in order to be certain about what happened in a given situation. But what about cases that have no direct evidence connecting the suspect to the crime scene? Can the truth be proved beyond a reasonable doubt when all the evidence we have is circumstantial? Absolutely.
Jurors are instructed to make no qualitative distinction between direct and circumstantial evidence in a case. Judges tell jurors, “Both direct and circumstantial evidence are acceptable types of evidence to prove or disprove the elements of a charge, including intent and mental state and acts necessary to a conviction, and neither is necessarily more reliable than the other. Neither is entitled to any greater weight than the other.”11 Juries make decisions about the guilt of suspects in cases that are completely circumstantial every day, and I’m very glad that they do; all my cold-case homicides have been successfully prosecuted with nothing but circumstantial evidence. Let me give you an example of the power and role of circumstantial evidence in determining the truth of a matter.
MURDER, CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE, AND CERTAINTY
Let’s examine a hypothetical murder to demonstrate the power of direct and circumstantial evidence. I want you to put yourself on the jury as the following case is being presented in court. First, let’s lay out the elements of the crime. On a sunny afternoon in a quiet residential neighborhood, the calm was broken by the sound of screaming coming from a house on the corner. The scream was very short and was heard by a neighbor who was watering her lawn next door. This witness peered through the large picture window of the corner house and observed a man assaulting her neighbor in the living room. The man was viciously bludgeoning the victim with a baseball bat. The witness next saw the suspect open the front door of the house and run from the residence with the bloody bat in hand; she got a long look at his face as he ran to a car parked directly in front of the victim’s residence.
If this witness was now sitting on the witness stand, testifying that the defendant in our case was, in fact, the man she saw murdering the victim, she would be providing us with a piece of direct evidence. If we came to trust what this witness had to say, this one piece of direct evidence would be enough to prove that the defendant committed the murder. But what if things had been a little bit different? What if the suspect in our case had been wearing a mask when he committed the murder? If this were the case, our witness would be unable to identify the killer directly (facially) and would be able to provide us with only scant information. She could tell us about the killer’s general build and what kind of clothing he was wearing, but little more. With this information alone, it would be impossible to prove that any particular defendant was the true killer.
Now, let’s say that detectives developed a potential suspect (named Ron Jacobsen) and began to collect information about his activity at the time of the murder. When detectives questioned Ron, he hesitated to provide them with an alibi. When he finally did offer a story, detectives investigated it and determined that it was a lie. On the basis of this lie, do you think Ron is guilty of this murder? He fits the general physical description offered by the witness, and he has lied about his alibi. We now have two pieces of circumstantial evidence that point to Ron as the killer, but without something more, few of us would be willing to convict him. Let’s see what else the detectives were able to discover.
The Sufficiency of Circumstantial Evidence
“Before you may rely on circumstantial evidence to conclude that a fact necessary to find the defendant guilty has been proved, you must be convinced that the People have proved each fact essential to that conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt. Also, before you may rely on circumstantial evidence to find the defendant guilty, you must be convinced that the only reasonable conclusion supported by the circumstantial evidence is that the defendant is guilty. If you can draw two or more reasonable conclusions from the circumstantial evidence, and one of those reasonable conclusions points to innocence and another to guilt, you must accept the one that points to innocence. However, when considering circumstantial evidence, you must accept only reasonable conclusions and reject any that are unreasonable” (Section 224, Judicial Council of California Criminal Jury Instructions, 2006).
During the interview with Ron, they learned that he had recently broken up with the victim after a tumultuous romantic relationship. He admitted to arguing with her recently about this relationship, and was extremely nervous whenever detectives focused on her. He repeatedly tried to minimize his relationship with her. Are you any closer to returning a verdict on Ron? He fits the general description, has lied about an alibi, and has been suspiciously nervous and evasive in the interview. It’s not looking good for Ron, but there may be other reasonable explanations for what we’ve seen so far. Even though we have three pieces of circumstantial evidence that point to Ron’s involvement in this crime, there still isn’t enough to be certain of his guilt.
What if I told you that responding officers found that the suspect in this case entered the victim’s residence and appeared to be waiting for her when she returned home? There were no signs of forced entry into the home, however, and detectives later learned that Ron was one of only two people who had a key to the victim’s house, allowing him access whenever he wanted. Ron certainly seems to be a “person of interest” now, doesn’t he? Ron matches the general description, has lied to investigators, is nervous and evasive, and had a way to enter the victim’s house. The circumstantial case is growing stronger with every revelation.
What if you learned that the investigators were approached by a friend of Ron’s who found a suicide note at Ron’s house? This note was dated on the day of the murder and described Ron’s desperate state of mind and his desire to kill himself on the afternoon that followed the homicide. Ron apparently overcame his desire to die, however, and never took his own life. The fact that Ron was suicidal immediately following the murder adds to the cumulative case against him, but is it enough to tip the scales and convince you that he is the killer? It was certainly enough to motivate the detectives to dig a little deeper. Given all this suspicious evidence, a judge agreed to sign a search warrant, and detectives served this warrant at Ron’s house. There they discovered a number of important pieces of circumstantial evidence.
The Cumulative Nature of Circumstantial Evidence
The nature of circumstantial evidence is such that any one piece may be interpreted in more than one way. For this reason, jurors have to be careful not to infer something from a single piece of evidence. Circumstantial evidence usually accumulates into a powerful collection, however, and each additional piece corroborates those that came before until, together, they strongly support one inference over another.
An explanation derived from circumstantial evidence becomes more reasonable as the collection of corroborating evidence grows and the alternative explanations have been deemed unreasonable.
First, they discovered a baseball bat hidden under Ron’s bed. This bat was dented and damaged in a way that was inconsistent with its use as a piece of sporting equipment, and when the crime lab did chemical tests, detectives learned that while the bat tested negative for the presence of blood, it displayed residue that indicated it had been recently washed with bleach. In addition to this, investigators also discovered a pair of blue jeans that had been chemically spot cleaned in two areas on the front of the legs. Like the bat, the jeans tested negative for blood but demonstrated that some form of household cleaner had been used in two specific areas to remove something. Finally, detectives recovered a pair of boots from Ron’s house. The witness described the boots she saw on the suspect and told responding officers that these boots had a unique stripe on the side. The boots at Ron’s house also had a stripe, and after some investigation with local vendors, detectives learned that this unusual brand of boot was relatively rare in this area. Only two stores carried the boot, and only ten pairs had been sold in the entire county in the past five years. Ron happened to own one of these ten pairs.
There are many pieces of circumstantial evidence that now point to Ron as the killer. He had access to the victim’s house, lied about his activity on the day of the murder, behaved suspiciously in the interview, appeared suicidal after the murder, and was in possession of a suspicious bat matching the murder weapon, a pair of questionably spot-cleaned pants, and a set of rare boots matching the suspect’s description. At this point in our assessment, I think many of you as jurors are becoming comfortable with the reasonable conclusion that Ron is our killer. But there is more.
Cold-Case Christianity Page 5