AK · jury_instructions
Alaska Civil Pattern Jury Instruction 1.06
Kinds of Evidence
I have just described the ways that evidence may be presented. Regardless of the way it is presented, evidence is either direct or circumstantial. Direct evidence, if you accept it as true, proves a fact. Circumstantial evidence, if you accept it as true, proves a fact from which you may infer that another fact is also true.
Let me give you an example. Let us pretend that as a juror you are asked to decide the following question: Did snow fall during a particular night? Direct evidence would be a witness testifying that the witness awoke during that night, went to the window, and saw the snow falling. From this evidence you could conclude that snow fell during the night.
Circumstantial evidence would be a witness testifying that the ground was bare when the witness went to sleep at 10:00 p.m., but the next morning when the witness awoke and looked out the window, the witness saw that the ground was covered with snow. From this evidence you could also conclude that snow fell during the night.
Facts may be proved by either direct or circumstantial evidence. The law accepts each as a reasonable method of proof.
History
Alaska Civil Pattern Jury Instructions 1.06, dated (1999). Prepared by the Alaska Civil Pattern Jury Instructions Committee; published by the Alaska Court System. The Alaska Court System states that these instructions "have not been approved or promulgated by any court or the Alaska Bar Association."
Provenance
- Source
- courts.alaska.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-09-24
- Edition
- 2026-09-24
- Content hash
e5be02fb6236b9cd938daf0576148397bb02291d01569bbec9689b66724a2495
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