But if the innocent person doesn’t know what’s going on (other than his own innocence), his alternative theory might not comport with reality—because he has no idea what’s going on. All he can do is make hypotheses and try to confirm them. It may take several hypotheses before he gets it right. If you’re going to “force liars to commit to a single alternative theory”, you’ve put the innocent person in a position where unless he gets lucky and picks the right answer the first time, he can’t defend himself because he committed to the theory and it turned out not to be true, and he doesn’t get to change it.
If they have no idea what is going on, but have been accused, they need to do what they can to maximize the chance of being believed. Sometimes this means responding with a theory. And such responses will look like evasion by your standards.
There aren’t (useful) “other ways” for an innocent person with no direct knowledge to act, unless he gets lucky, like by catching the culprit.
I already said I don’t consider alternative explanations on their own to be indicative of lying. I don’t know where you’re getting this notion that speculation is evasion, here’s what I said on the matter:
If a client is either factually innocent or guilty-but-sober-minded, there’s no difficulty getting them to admit the incriminating nature of incriminating evidence. If a client is lying — whether to me, themselves, or just desperately trying to manifest a reality which doesn’t exist — it’s like pulling teeth.
I don’t know where you’re getting this notion that speculation is evasion
The liar faces a conundrum. He can ask to modify the theory again, which is perfectly fine, but whatever he comes up with to accommodate “dog isn’t sick” fact will directly contradict the preceding “Gillian stole cookies but didn’t eat them” theory.
You’ve described this kind of speculation as specific to liars, yet innocent people will end up having to do it too.
If a client is either factually innocent or guilty-but-sober-minded, there’s no difficulty getting them to admit the incriminating nature of incriminating evidence.
If an innocent person was shown evidence, of course he’s going to try to explain why the evidence is consistent with his innocence. Why do you think he wouldn’t do this?
But if the innocent person doesn’t know what’s going on (other than his own innocence), his alternative theory might not comport with reality—because he has no idea what’s going on. All he can do is make hypotheses and try to confirm them. It may take several hypotheses before he gets it right. If you’re going to “force liars to commit to a single alternative theory”, you’ve put the innocent person in a position where unless he gets lucky and picks the right answer the first time, he can’t defend himself because he committed to the theory and it turned out not to be true, and he doesn’t get to change it.
If they have no idea what’s going on then there’s no need for this exercise. There’s other ways to cooperate in truth-seeking.
If they have no idea what is going on, but have been accused, they need to do what they can to maximize the chance of being believed. Sometimes this means responding with a theory. And such responses will look like evasion by your standards.
There aren’t (useful) “other ways” for an innocent person with no direct knowledge to act, unless he gets lucky, like by catching the culprit.
I already said I don’t consider alternative explanations on their own to be indicative of lying. I don’t know where you’re getting this notion that speculation is evasion, here’s what I said on the matter:
You’ve described this kind of speculation as specific to liars, yet innocent people will end up having to do it too.
If an innocent person was shown evidence, of course he’s going to try to explain why the evidence is consistent with his innocence. Why do you think he wouldn’t do this?