- an inference is unreasonable if it requires the jury to engage in a degree of speculation and conjecture that renders its findings a guess or mere possibility; after all, inferences must stop at some point; to this end, at some point along a rational continuum, inferences may become so attenuated from underlying evidence as to cast doubt on the trier of fact's ultimate conclusion
CAAF Opinion Digest · III.C.12 · Evidence
Inferences
7 digested opinions, 1999–2024 Terms
2024 (October Term)
- a permissive inference, also called a permissive presumption, is a presumption that a trier of fact is free to accept or reject from a given set of facts
2018 (October Term)
- a military judge is allowed to draw reasonable inferences from the evidence presented
2014 (September Term)
- an accused is not required to testify in his defense and his failure to do so may not be the basis for any inference against him
2003
- evidence of urinalysis tests, their results, and expert testimony explaining them is sufficient to permit a factfinder to find beyond a reasonable doubt that an accused used contraband drugs; the factfinder may draw a permissible inference of wrongfulness from a circumstantial showing of drug use based on such evidence; this evidence is legally sufficient as long as the defense evidence of innocent ingestion could be reasonably disbelieved by the factfinder
2001
- orders are clothed with an inference of lawfulness
1999
- to sustain a drug prosecution based upon an urinalysis and to support the inferences of knowing and wrongful use, the test results must be supported by expert testimony explaining the underlying scientific methodology and the significance of the test result, so as to provide a rational basis for the inferences of knowing and wrongful use
- to support the inference of wrongful use of drugs, the prosecution’s expert testimony must show: (1) that the metabolite is not naturally produced by the body or any substance other than the drug in question; (2) that the cutoff level and reported concentration are high enough to reasonably discount the possibility of unknowing ingestion and to indicate a reasonable likelihood that the user at some time would have experienced the physical and psychological effects of the drug; and (3) that the testing methodology reliably detected the presence and reliably quantified the concentration of the drug or metabolite in the sample
Source and status
This is a verbatim mirror of the Opinion Digest and opinions tables published by the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. The headnotes are the court staff’s summaries of the opinions, reproduced as published; they are not the opinions themselves and not this site’s commentary. Nothing here is edited on this site.
Last updated by the court: Oct 13, 2026 · mirrored Oct 29, 2026 · digest page IIIC12 · Always confirm a holding against the opinion itself (linked from each case name).