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VI. Guiding Legal Principles

This is not a criminal case, but rather a private, administrative matter. You have asked for guidance on the questions of circumstantial evidence; credibility of witnesses who have been convicted of a crime; credibility of witnesses who may have an interest in the outcome; or credibility of witnesses who may be biased in some way.

Set forth below are jury instructions to guide you as the ultimate trier of fact. These instructions have been approved for juries in criminal trials in the United States District Courts by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York. While counsel may debate certain portions of these instructions, our experience teaches that they fairly state the law.

A. Circumstantial Evidence

If a party in court is trying to prove an event and an eye-witness testifies that he saw the event happen, that is direct evidence and, of course, there are many other types of direct evidence that I could mention. But one clear example is the eye-witness testimony of a particular event.

Circumstantial evidence, on the other hand, is where one fact or chain of events gives rise to a rea~bnable inference of another fact. If one fact or group of facts on the basis of common sense and common experience leads you to logically and reasonably infer other facts, then this is circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence is no less valid and no less weighty than direct evidence provided that the inferences drawn are logical and reasonable. In a case where a defendant's state of mind is at issue, where there are questions of what the defendant intended or what his purpose was, circumstantial evidence is often an important means of proving what the s~ate of mind was at the time of the events in question. Sometimes it is the only means of proving state of mind.

Supplemental charge:

... [Y]ou must consider all the circumstances and see whether the circumstances, taking into consideration everything known to you, everything in the evidence, to see whether from all those circumstances an inference can logically and reasonably be drawn towards a particular fact.

Putting it another way, what, if any, are the logical and reasonable inferences that can be drawn from a set of circumstances. Sometimes none can. Sometimes it is even-stephen, one way or the other, and you just can't draw any particular inferences one way or the other. Sometimes the inferences tend to go in a particular direction quite logically and reasonably and if it does go in that direction, then that is what the jury is entitled to consider.

United States v. Dizdar, 581 F.2d 1031 (2d Cir. 1978).

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