That is bound to happen when people form strong opinions. People look for things that support their opinion and that phenomenon is called confirmation bias. It is easy to understand when you think about the difference between a preliminary and a trial and what kind of information can be brought forth in each phase.
It's also called 'ordinary human nature.'
To not attempt to bolster one's views with
something would be a sign of a cognitive defect.
And that's enshrined in the American jury system, which is why Barry's side has its little PR war going on (not so much on WS any longer, but elsewhere in the SM sphere).
I guess you can go further and call all jury decisions "confirmation bias," because that's what they are and that's how we roll as humans. Each juror forms an opinion, based on their own notions. When 12 people agree, we call it a day and the trial is over.
Apodictic statements are few and far between. While I'd say the Law of Gravity is not opinion, I am aware that scientists are still puzzled by aspects of it.
MOO pay as you go phones have phone numbers, phone numbers are connected to the point of sale, and the information used to open the account and pay for the minutes.
Lying may get you an account, but the point of sale will be known.
If the phone is used to call anyone, the relevant tower will have the number.
While this is true, I can be in my car and at a point of sale that will allow me to pay cash and not ask for ID within about 30 minutes. Now, it's true that the phone would still be traced back to that place, but these places are kiosks/pop-ups that disappear the moment an investigation starts. Within 3 hours, I could be in Mexico and buy a burner phone from someone else on the street for cash (and I could do that in downtown Los Angeles as well). LAPD runs raids in the Garment District for all kinds of reasons - but this is one of them (these phone dealers are not supposed to sell those phones without ID, although I'm not sure if that's state or federal law - would be interesting to know if it's just local or whether it's national).
No one who wants to have an anonymous burner phone goes to a store with cameras. Swap meets are another great place to get one. One does need a SIM, but that can be obtained in similarly shady ways - and activated in ways that are ultimately untraceable.
If Barry got his burner phone in Mexico, point of sale is not, in practice, traceable.
All that's left is indeed the towers off which the phone pings. If the SIM was registered to a non-existent address or to someone else's address, all bets off as to whether that's traceable. It's actually a pretty common form of ID theft (we had two phones registered to our household - point of sale was Houston; I've never been to Houston and reported it as fraud the instant I saw it - but it wasn't immediate, I only caught it a few months later).
