ABSTRACT
As Assistant District Attorney, Jack McCoy said to his boss, “It isn’t easy to prove a negative.” Real-life prosecutors, on whom the U.S. Constitution places the burden of proof in criminal court cases, would concur with their television counterpart. Generally, it is far easier to prove that something exists than that it does not. Proving the former requires looking only until a thing is found; proving the latter requires looking everywhere a thing could possibly be found.
