Hot take: I started reading the actual court filings for a big conspiracy case and it flipped my view.

For years I believed the official story about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, just from news clips. Then last month, I decided to read the full 2,000-page defense motion from Tsarnaev's trial, which you can find online. It lays out a ton of weird evidence about his brother's FBI contacts that never made the news. Now I'm split: one side says the docs prove a cover-up, the other says it's just standard legal arguments. Has anyone else dug into primary sources for a case and had their opinion totally shift?

2 comments

2 Comments

james_clark18d ago

Ever try reading a legal doc and realize you need a law degree just to follow the footnotes? I felt so lost I almost turned it into a conspiracy myself!

scott.mia18d ago

Honestly, just skip to the definitions section first. They usually hide a glossary up front that explains all the jargon. Then go back and read one paragraph at a time, looking up any Latin phrases. It turns "inter alia" into just "among other things" and makes it way less scary.