Sufficiency of circumstantial evidence in criminal trials.

United States v. de la Cruz-Paulino, 61 F.3d 986, 999 n. 9 (1st Cir. 1995) ("It cannot be doubted, however, that circumstantial evidence is often very probative. As Professor Wigmore notes, without allowing the introduction of evidence that permits 'an inference upon an inference,' 'hardly a single...Circumstantial evidence is not an inferior grade of evidence: it can be as strong as (or stronger than) any other kind of evidence, including eyewitness evidence, physical evidence, or scientific evidence.

Fed. R. Evid. 804(b)(4) ("(A) A statement concerning the declarant's own birth, adoption, marriage, divorce, legitimacy, relationship by blood, adoption, or marriage, ancestry, or other similar fact of personal or family history, even though declarant had no means of acquiring personal knowledge of the matter stated; or (B) a statement...If the declarant is unavailable, Federal Rule of Evidence 804(b)(4) or a comparable State rules recognizes a hearsay exception for (A) A statement concerning the declarant's own birth, adoption, marriage, divorce, legitimacy, relationship by blood, adoption, or marriage, ancestry, or other similar fact of personal or family history, even though declarant had no means of acquiring personal knowledge of the matter stated; or (B) a statement concerning the foregoing matters, and death also, of another person, if the declarant was related to the other by blood, adoption, or marriage or was so intimately associated with the other's family as to be likely to have accurate information concerning the matter declared.

Johnson v. Norris, 537 F.3d 840, 845-847 (8th Cir. 2008) (habeas corpus review of murder conviction and death sentence; trial court rejected criminal defendant's attempt to elicit and offer evidence protected by a state's psychotherapist-patient privilege; defendant argued "that his rights under the...Although United States Supreme Court precedent establishes that in some circumstances a nonconstitutional privilege must yield to the federal constitutional rights of a criminal defendant, apart from the specific circumstances for which the Court has given an authoritative answer, it is unsettled and and it is unknown when such a privilege rule must yield to a federal constitutional right such as confrontation, due process, or the right to present a defense.