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Circumstantial evidence is evidence in which an inference is required to connect it to a conclusion of fact. By contrast, direct evidence supports the truth of an assertion directly—i.e., without need for any additional evidence or the intervening inference.

On its own, it is the nature of circumstantial evidence for more than one explanation to still be possible. Inference from one piece of circumstantial evidence may not guarantee accuracy. Circumstantial evidence usually accumulates into a collection, so that the pieces then become corroborating evidence. Together, they may more strongly support one particular inference over another. An explanation involving circumstantial evidence becomes more valid as proof of a fact when the alternative explanations have been ruled out.

However, in logic, validity bespeaks nothing concerning the actual truth value of the premises. For a conclusion to be valid, it can not be false given the particular premise from which the inferance demands such conclusion necessarily follows and given the premise the conclusion can NOT be false. However, a conclusion can only be sound if the conclusion is valid and the premises are indeed actually true.

Shall the death penalty, or murder conviction be delivered on valid conclusions, or is the bar necessarily high that conclusions must indeed be sound? That is the nature of reasonable doubt.

Circumstantial evidence allows a trier of fact to deduce a fact exists. In criminal law, the inference is made by the trier of facts in order to support the truth of assertion (of guilt or absence of guilt). The fact to be assumed may be so undeniably true so as to be true without actually having to prove the truth value.

When a judge takes judicial notice of a fact in a criminal case, e.g., that the defendant could not have boarded a train in New York and exited in Texas without somehow crossing state lines - he will tell the jury they "may" accept that fact as proven without further evidence. But he may not tell them that they are required to do so, or take the factual question away from them, no matter how obvious the fact might seem (cf. Advisory Committee Notes to Fed. R. Evid. 201(g)). Even where the defendant and his attorney enter into a formal stipulation admitting an element of the offense, the jury should be told merely that they may regard the matter to be "proved," if they wish, but the judge still cannot direct a verdict on that factual issue or take it away from the jury over the defendant's objection (United States v. Muse, 83 F.3d 672, 679-80; 4th Cir. 1996).

Finally, the jury's power is considered sacrosanct by our abiding "judicial distaste" for special verdicts or interrogatories to the jury in criminal cases (United States v. Oliver North, 910 F.2d 843, 910-11; D.C. Cir. 1990). Unlike in civil cases, where such devices are routinely employed, in criminal cases it has frequently been held to be error to ask a jury to return anything but a general verdict of guilty or not guilty (United States v. McCracken, 488 F.2d 406, 418-419; 5th Cir. 1974 - collecting cases). This rule is designed to safeguard the jury's power "to arrive at a general verdict without having to support it by reasons or by a report of its deliberations," and to protect its historic power to nullify or temper rules of law based on the jurors' sense of justice as conscience of the community (Id.; United States v. Spock, 416 F.2d 165, 181-82; 1st Cir. 1969). The jury is given "a general veto power, and this power should not be attenuated by requiring the jury to answer in writing a detailed list of questions or explain its reasons." (United States v. Wilson, 629 F.2d 439, 443; 6th Cir. 1980). Although the issue is far from settled, a powerful argument can be made that this rule "is of constitutional dimensions," and a direct corollary of the Sixth Amendment's protection of the jury's power to nullify (Wayne LaFave v Jerold Israel, Criminal Procedure § 24.7(a); 2d ed. 1992).