"You can easily debunk the vast majority of the evidence that was presented in the case, I would say all of the evidence."

Said Adam Sirois, the lone holdout after 18 days of deliberation in the Etan Patz murder case. "There was no real firm, corroborating evidence" for the confession by the defendant Pedro Hernandez," he said, quoted in a decently detailed NYT article.

There were originally 3 jurors who wanted to acquit, but in the end, it was down to Sirois. The other jurors were, we're told, put great weight on something that doesn't seem to have much value as corroboration:

On [the final day of deliberation] the jurors found themselves focusing again on what many had considered one of the most damning bits of evidence against Mr. Hernandez: that he had provided physical details of a passageway on Thompson Street where he said he had dumped Etan�s body....

There was a videotape of Hernandez leading the police down that passageway:

For some jurors, the tape was proof Mr. Hernandez was telling the truth. �The cops can�t implant that in his head,� Joan M. Brooks said. �Pedro was leading the walk.�

But Etan's body was never found. Hernandez just seemed to know about a particular alleyway.

Defense lawyers argued that the confession, which he repeated later to a prosecutor, was a fiction made up under police pressure by a man with a low I.Q. and a personality disorder clouding his ability to tell fact from fantasy...

Mr. Sirois acknowledged he was more skeptical than other jurors of the police handling of the interview that led to the confession, noting most of it was not recorded and that the police misrepresented some of Mr. Hernandez�s actual words in their written account of his statement. He also found compelling the expert testimony that Mr. Hernandez was susceptible to making a false confession.

The NYT has a second article "The Legacy of Etan Patz: Wary Children Who Became Watchful Parents." That connects the old Patz-related parental wariness to the present-day rebels of the "free-range children" movement. In fact, yesterday happened to be "Take Our Children to the Park ... and Let Them Walk Home by Themselves" Day.

A lone holdout juror...

... in the case of Etan Patz.

ADDED: Why are there photographs of the jurors? In the comments, someone says that the holdout juror "looks like a smug little prick & probably glad that he let the guy off." This is a man who held out for 18 days of deliberation. How do you expect a man who just did that to look?

Adam Sirois, juror No 11, said Hernandez's guilt had not been proven beyond reasonable doubt. During a press conference held at the conclusion of the trial, a smirking Sirois sheepishly raised his hand to indicate that he was the juror who was responsible for the mistrial.

Sirois told reporters Pedro Hernadenz's apparent mental health issues were a major concern for him, and that he could not convict the defendant solely based on his 'very bizarre' confession, reported ABC News.

So there are photographs because the jurors gave a press conference. The photographers must have taken thousands of pictures of Sirois's face, and the newspaper editors have chosen one, one that supports the "smirking... sheepishly" characterization. If he "looks like a smug little prick" to you, that's because the editors decided to help you think that and because the man just had an 18-day experience and was the kind of person who could stand up for his beliefs in a group setting for more than 2 weeks. Most people would cave and go along to get along. These people are much more likely to have a pleasant, unremarkable face.

AND: Amy Davidson in The New Yorker: "The doubt in this case was not just reasonable. It was, and is, profound."

ALSO: It should be clear that the jurors chose to give that press conference. They knew they didn't have to do it. And yet, if they had not taken advantage of the opportunity to engage with the press as a group, the press would have sought them out individually. 

Harvard lawprof Noah Feldman says Robert Durst's confession is not admissible.

What we have is video of Durst, alone and looking into a mirror and saying "What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course." Feldman says he's "going deeply into the law" and "the circumstances of the statement" and encountering a "profound question about fantasy versus reality, the nature of a soliloquy, and the fascinating human strangeness unleashed by the era of reality television." All of that creates opportunities for presenting other evidence and making arguments about the meaning and weight of the words spoken by Durst, but it's not hearsay, because statements of a party offered by an opposing party are defined by the rules of evidence as not hearsay. [ADDED: Under some states' evidence rules, the statement of a party is hearsay but would fall within an exception to the rule against hearsay.] So what is Feldman's argument?
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