[razeh]

I was on the jury for a resisting arrest case and ended up as an alternate. The judge pulled us into chambers and we talked for about an hour. One of the things that he said that stuck with me was “Everybody thinks it is CSI in here. It’s not. People come here and they tell you [the jurors] stories and then you have to decide which are true.”

[adastra22]

Yeah, all the lawyers and judges I've talked to hate CSI (the show) for what it has done to people's expectations. The legal system does not operate like it is portrayed on TV. It really does come down to "what story is more believable?"

Sometimes a story is more believable because there is incontrovertible physical evidence. Normally in those circumstances it'd never go to the court room though -- plea deal in criminal cases, settlement in civil.