Minnesota witness-tampering defense guide
Tampering With a Witness in Minnesota
Minnesota witness tampering is not one offense with one set of elements. Section 609.498 contains 20 enumerated alternatives divided among first-degree felony, aggravated first-degree felony, second-degree gross-misdemeanor, and third-degree misdemeanor charges. The dividing lines are the intended result, the person’s status, whether the allegation concerns testimony or crime reporting, and the alleged means—force or injury threats, a credible threat of great bodily harm or death, three specified coercion threats, or intimidation. Because many theories punish an attempt, the prosecution may not need proof that a witness actually stayed away, changed testimony, withheld information, or gave false information. It still must prove the precise statutory means and the specific intent required by the charged theory.
You will work directly with me.
If you hire me, I will identify the exact paragraph charged, reconstruct the complete communication and surrounding events, and test the alleged threat or intimidation in context. I will separate lawful witness contact, argument, anger, relationship conflict, and requests for truthful conduct from proof of a specific intent to interfere with testimony or crime reporting. I will also explain the real sentencing framework without presenting the statutory maximum as a prediction.
The statute protects testimony, truthful information, and participants from retaliation
- Protected activity
- Attending or testifying in an authorized proceeding, giving law enforcement crime information, and being free from retaliation after doing either.
- Potential witness
- Several theories cover a person who “is or may become” a witness; a trial subpoena or completed testimony is not always required.
- Specific intent
- The charged words or acts must be intended to cause the prohibited result—such as stopping attendance or influencing false information.
- Attempt language
- Many paragraphs expressly reach attempts, so the alleged witness need not comply. The act and intent still must fit the statute.
- Retaliation window
- First-degree retaliation must occur within one year of the proceeding or report, or within one year after the actor’s release from incarceration, whichever is later.
- Offense date
- The statute and Guidelines in effect when the alleged conduct occurred control. The current text has been stable since the 2010 addition of third degree, but it must still be date-checked.
Contact is not automatically tampering. The state must prove the degree-specific means and intended result. But any release order, DANCO, order for protection, or other no-contact restriction must be obeyed independently of whether a communication would constitute witness tampering.
Four classifications use four different kinds of alleged pressure
| Degree | Required means or aggravator | Covered conduct | Classification and maximum |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aggravated first Subd. 1b | Causing great bodily harm or death, or an implicit or explicit credible threat to cause great bodily harm or death | Six criminal-trial, reporting, false-information, and retaliation alternatives | Felony: up to 20 years and/or $30,000 |
| First Subds. 1, 1a | Force; threats of injury to a person or property; or injury/threatened injury in retaliation | Six authorized-proceeding, reporting, false-information, and retaliation alternatives | Felony: up to 5 years and/or $10,000 |
| Second Subds. 2, 3(a) | One of § 609.27, subd. 1(3)–(5)’s threats concerning business/calling, secrets/reputation, or criminal charges | Four attendance, testimony, reporting, and false-information alternatives; no separate retaliation paragraph | Gross misdemeanor: up to 364 days and/or $3,000 under Minnesota’s general gross-misdemeanor maximum |
| Third Subds. 2a, 3(b) | Intimidation proved through a specific act or the totality of circumstances | Four attendance, testimony, reporting, and false-information alternatives; no separate retaliation paragraph | Misdemeanor: up to 90 days and/or $1,000 under Minnesota’s general misdemeanor maximum |
The same conversation should not be analyzed by starting with the highest maximum. The starting point is the complaint: degree, subdivision, paragraph, claimed protected activity, claimed means, and alleged intended result. A threat of physical injury is not second-degree conduct merely because it is threatening; second degree incorporates only three specifically identified coercion clauses. Likewise, intimidation alone does not satisfy first degree unless the state proves the force, injury threat, or retaliation means required there.
The 20 theories fall into six recurring objectives
The first two groups each have six paragraphs; the second- and third-degree groups each have four. The cards below pair the recurring objectives while identifying which degrees include them.
Stop attendance or testimony
First degree: intentionally prevent, dissuade, or attempt through force or threats of injury to a person or property a person who is or may become a witness from attending or testifying in any legally authorized trial, proceeding, or inquiry.
Aggravated: the corresponding approach is limited to a criminal trial or proceeding and adds actual or credibly threatened great bodily harm or death.
Second/third: the same intended result may be charged using an incorporated coercion threat or intimidation.
Cause false testimony
First degree: use force or injury threats to intentionally coerce or attempt to coerce a person who is or may become a witness to testify falsely in an authorized trial, proceeding, or inquiry.
Aggravated: adds the great-bodily-harm/death aggravator and is limited to a criminal trial or proceeding.
Second/third: use a specified coercion threat to coerce false testimony, or intimidation to influence false testimony.
Retaliate for being summoned
First degree: intentionally cause or threaten injury to a person or property in retaliation against someone summoned as a witness, within the statutory one-year window.
Aggravated: actual or credibly threatened great bodily harm or death while intentionally retaliating against someone summoned in a criminal trial or proceeding, within the same timing structure.
Second and third degree contain no matching retaliation paragraph.
Stop crime reporting
Each degree has a approach aimed at intentionally preventing, dissuading, or attempting to prevent or dissuade a person from providing crime information to law enforcement. The difference is the means: force/injury threat, great-bodily-harm/death aggravator, a specified § 609.27 threat, or intimidation.
Cause false crime information
Each degree also has a false-information approach. First and second degree use “coerce or attempt to coerce”; aggravated uses the enumerated intentional act with the additional serious-harm aggravator; third degree uses “influences or attempts to influence” by intimidation. The alleged target and intended false information should be identified precisely.
Retaliate for crime reporting
First degree: intentionally cause or threaten injury to a person or property in retaliation against someone who provided crime information to law enforcement, within one year of the report or the actor’s release, whichever is later.
Aggravated: actual or credibly threatened great bodily harm or death in that retaliation. Second and third degree contain no parallel retaliation theory.
Force, injury threats, serious-harm threats, coercion, and intimidation are not interchangeable
First degree: force or threats of injury
For the four interference or false-information alternatives, first degree requires force or threats of injury to a person or property. The alleged words cannot be evaluated in isolation from tone, timing, prior conduct, physical presence, conditional language, audience, and the parties’ relationship. In State v. Evans, the court treated context—including prior domestic incidents and appearing near the person’s workplace—as relevant to whether “live to regret it” functioned as an implicit physical threat. The opinion does not make that phrase automatically criminal in every setting. It illustrates why the complete context matters.
The two first-degree retaliation alternatives are drafted differently. They reach intentionally causing injury or threatening injury in retaliation. The state must therefore prove retaliatory purpose and the required timing connection, not simply hostility that happens after a proceeding or report. The protected person may differ from the person or property threatened, because the statute refers to injury to “any” person or property.
Aggravated first degree: great bodily harm or death
The aggravated theory does not arise from every bodily-harm threat. Section 609.02 defines “great bodily harm” as injury creating a high probability of death, causing serious permanent disfigurement, causing permanent or protracted loss or impairment of a bodily member or organ, or constituting other serious bodily harm. The nonprecedential Abdeltawwab opinion identified it as plain instructional error to substitute ordinary “bodily harm,” although the death threat proved in that case made the error nonprejudicial. The complaint, probable-cause record, and instructions must preserve the statutory distinction.
The threat may be implicit or explicit, but it must be credible and must threaten great bodily harm or death. Credibility is evaluated from the evidence, not from the label an officer or witness attaches to the statement. Access, proximity, prior conduct, specificity, ability, timing, and reactions may be relevant; so may exaggeration, ambiguity, conditional language, lack of transmission, or evidence showing a different purpose. Actual great bodily harm or death may also satisfy the aggravator when caused in the course of an enumerated intentional act.
Second degree: only three incorporated coercion threats
Subdivision 2 incorporates § 609.27, subdivision 1(3), (4), and (5): a threat to unlawfully injure a trade, business, profession, or calling; a threat to expose a secret or deformity, publish a defamatory statement, or otherwise expose a person to disgrace or ridicule; or a threat to make or cause a criminal charge, true or false. This is a closed cross-reference. A prosecutor must identify the incorporated clause and prove the charged witness-related objective.
The Revisor’s current § 609.27 page notes that clause (4) was held facially overbroad under the First Amendment in State v. Jorgenson. Because § 609.498 subdivision 2 expressly imports that clause, a charge relying on reputation, secret, disgrace, or ridicule language requires careful constitutional and severability analysis. The existence and effect of that issue should be briefed from the controlling opinion and current charge—not brushed aside or converted into a categorical answer without briefing.
Third degree: intimidation from an act or total circumstances
Subdivision 2a expressly says intimidation may be proved from a specific act or the totality of circumstances. That permits contextual proof, but it does not remove specific intent or the need to establish the prohibited objective. A stern conversation, refusal to cooperate, request to tell the truth, lawful advice to invoke a valid privilege, or angry remark does not become third-degree tampering merely because another person felt uncomfortable. The issue is whether intimidation was used intentionally to stop protected participation or influence false testimony or false crime information.
The intended result must be proved from the words, acts, audience, and sequence
State v. Collins is the central published appellate authority identifying first-degree witness tampering as a specific-intent offense. Collins sent a threatening letter just before his first court appearance, and the letter referred to the pending charge. The court held the surrounding evidence supported the inference that the intended result was to make the victim reconsider testifying. The case does not create a presumption from every threat; it shows how timing and connection to the proceeding can supply the required inference.
Intent evidence may include the communication’s exact language; reference to a case, police, testimony, subpoena, recantation, charges, or “dropping” a matter; instructions to an intermediary; deleted messages; jail calls; location; conduct before and after contact; and the accused person’s knowledge of the investigation or proceeding. Evidence pointing another way can include an unrelated dispute, lawful litigation communication, lack of knowledge that the person may be a witness, a request for truthful information, ambiguous pronouns, joking or hyperbolic speech, incomplete recordings, or a third party acting outside the accused person’s direction.
Several statutory paragraphs include attempt within the substantive definition. For those theories, the intended interference can be complete even if the target ignores the request, reports immediately, appears, testifies truthfully, or never receives the communication. The unpublished, nonprecedential Meyer opinion reasoned that first-degree attempt language did not require the threat to reach the potential witness where the alleged actor intentionally tried to use threats through intermediaries. Its status and facts limit how it should be used, but it warns against treating failed delivery as an automatic defense.
The newest nonprecedential application, State v. Jenkins (2026), shows the other side of attempt analysis. The court reversed a conviction charged as chapter 609 attempt of aggravated first-degree tampering because the evidence did not prove a substantial step toward threatening the witness; conversations about making the witness disappear and having an intermediary seek recantation did not, on that record, establish the threatened-serious-harm component. The court expressly declined to decide whether “attempted aggravated first-degree witness tampering” is a cognizable offense. A defense should not overstate that unresolved question, but it should demand proof of every aggravating component and examine whether the charge uses the statute’s built-in attempt language or a separate § 609.17 theory.
The unpublished, nonprecedential Muckle opinion held that, in the particular context of a four-year-old child, a threat to kill the child if she told “anybody” could support an inference of intent to prevent a law-enforcement report. It did not hold that “anybody” always means police. Age, relationship, vocabulary, underlying conduct, timing, and the surrounding exchange drove the conclusion. The 2026 nonprecedential Jenkins opinion similarly treated third degree as a specific-intent offense and sustained a false-information theory based on the proved circumstances. These opinions are persuasive illustrations, not substitutes for the facts and controlling authority in a new case.
Preserve the full communication and the underlying case chronology
| Evidence | Possible prosecution use | Defense questions |
|---|---|---|
| Texts, social messages, email, letters, and native account data | Exact words, recipient, timing, delivery, intent, deletion, and reference to a case | Complete thread, authorship, account access, edits, missing attachments, sarcasm, quoted material, metadata, and whether an intermediary added words |
| Calls, voicemail, jail recordings, body camera, and interviews | Tone, context, instructions to another person, reaction, and knowledge | Completeness, audibility, transcription, warnings, identity, leading questions, clipped segments, and whether the alleged target heard it |
| Complaint, subpoena, hearing notices, reports, and court docket | Witness status, proceeding, law-enforcement report, timing, and motive | Whether the person was or may become a witness, whether the proceeding was authorized by law, and what the accused knew at the time |
| Medical, photographic, and physical evidence | Injury, force, great bodily harm, or corroboration of a credible threat | Degree of injury, cause, date, alternative source, statutory great-bodily-harm definition, and connection to alleged interference |
| Third-party communications | Use of an intermediary, circulation of a threat, plan, or concealment | Direction versus independent action, hearsay layers, motive, exact instructions, changes in retelling, and whether the statement reached anyone |
| Relationship and prior-event evidence | Context for implicit threat, intimidation, credibility, intent, or reaction | Admissibility, notice, disputed allegations, remoteness, noncriminal explanations, and improper propensity reasoning |
| Release, DANCO, OFP, and no-contact orders | Knowledge, prohibited contact, context, and a separate offense | Service, exact terms, expiration, exceptions, identity, method of contact, and whether the state is improperly merging distinct elements |
Create a chronology that begins before the disputed contact and continues through the next investigative step. Preserve native files; do not crop screenshots, delete messages, alter documents, contact a witness to “clear things up,” or direct another person to do so. If an order bars contact, obey it. Counsel can obtain records and communicate through lawful channels.
The statutory ceiling and presumptive sentence are different questions
First-degree witness tampering carries a maximum of five years and/or $10,000. Aggravated first degree carries up to 20 years and/or $30,000. The general Minnesota ceilings for a gross misdemeanor and misdemeanor supply the maximums for second and third degree: 364 days and/or $3,000, and 90 days and/or $1,000, respectively. Section 609.498 states no universal minimum custody term. Section 609.101 separately supplies minimum-fine starting figures of $9,000 for aggravated first degree, $3,000 for first degree, $900 for second degree, and $300 for third degree; the nonfelony figures remain subject to a lower uniform Judicial Council fine schedule. Qualifying public-defender status, indigence, or undue hardship permits reduction to at least $50; community work service may substitute for a fine; and installments may be authorized.
For offenses committed on or after August 1, 2026, the adopted Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines rank first degree at severity level 5 and aggravated first degree at severity level 9. The presumptive disposition and duration for a felony depend on the applicable grid, criminal-history score, offense date, modifiers, and other rules. Both felony theories appear on the Guidelines list of offenses eligible for permissive consecutive sentencing. That is permission, not a requirement, and the other conviction, behavioral-incidence law, charging structure, and sentencing findings still matter.
Subdivision 4 says a prosecution or conviction for aggravated first-degree witness tampering does not bar conviction or punishment for another crime notwithstanding §§ 609.035 and 609.04. That express rule can permit separate punishment for another offense arising in the episode, but it should not be read to authorize duplicate formal convictions for aggravated first degree and the lesser first-degree form. In the nonprecedential Abdeltawwab decision, the Court of Appeals reversed the separate first-degree conviction as a lesser degree of aggravated first degree. Whether another count may be separately sentenced can also require a charge-specific analysis of subdivision 4, the conduct, and the other statute.
A stay under § 609.135, probation, jail as a condition, restitution, treatment, no contact, electronic monitoring, firearm consequences, employment/licensing effects, immigration consequences, and the future use of the conviction are distinct questions. A conviction involving force, attempted force, or threatened physical force can raise federal or state firearm and immigration issues, but the answer depends on the precise subdivision and record of conviction. It is unsafe to announce a universal collateral consequence from the page title alone.
The one-year periods in subdivision 1(c), 1(f), and their aggravated counterparts define when retaliation is covered. They are not the criminal filing deadline. The limitations analysis comes from § 628.26 and any offense-date rules. Preserve the dates of the proceeding, report, alleged retaliation, incarceration and release, charging document, and amendments.
Questions that can change the charge, degree, or outcome
What result was allegedly intended?
Was the alleged objective to stop attendance, stop testimony, cause false testimony, stop a police report, cause false information, or retaliate? Those are different theories. A complaint that uses several verbs should be tested against the probable-cause facts, bill of particulars where appropriate, jury-instruction plan, and unanimity requirements. The person allegedly targeted and the proceeding or crime information at issue should be identifiable.
What means supposedly produced that result?
Force or an injury threat supports a different degree from a business/reputation/criminal-charge threat or intimidation. The aggravated theory demands the further great-bodily-harm/death element and credibility of the threat. The state should not move between these categories without notice and proof. The incorporated § 609.27 theory also raises the constitutional issue attached to clause (4).
Was there specific intent rather than another purpose?
The defense should test the entire sequence. A person may complain about a case, ask someone to tell the truth, end a relationship, discuss lawful privilege, seek records, express fear of imprisonment, or engage in an unrelated dispute without intending witness interference. Conversely, using indirect language or an intermediary does not automatically defeat intent. Native communications, contemporaneous conduct, and the accused person’s knowledge often decide which explanation is reasonable.
Does the evidence prove an attempt or only preparation and talk?
Where the statute itself includes “attempts,” the complaint must still identify an act and intended statutory result. Where the state adds chapter 609 attempt to a completed offense formulation, it must establish the legally required substantial step and resolve whether that attempted offense exists. Jenkins makes clear that discussion of a desired outcome does not necessarily prove a substantial step toward every aggravating element.
Are other counts being duplicated or improperly stacked?
The same episode may produce assault, threats of violence, DANCO/OFP violation, stalking, obstruction, or witness-tampering counts. Each offense needs independent element proof. Subdivision 4 changes ordinary multiple-punishment rules for aggravated first degree and another crime, but included-offense and behavioral-incident questions remain highly specific. The charging instrument, verdict forms, and sentence should be reviewed together.
Minnesota witness-tampering FAQs
Is asking someone not to testify automatically witness tampering?
No. The state must prove the charged degree’s means and specific intent. Force, an injury threat, a qualifying great-bodily-harm/death threat, one of three incorporated coercion threats, or intimidation must match the charged provision. An existing no-contact order may independently prohibit the communication.
Must the witness actually change testimony or skip court?
Often no. Many paragraphs expressly punish an attempt to prevent, dissuade, coerce, or influence. Failed delivery or refusal to comply may therefore not end the analysis, but the state still must prove the act, degree-specific means, protected activity, and intended result.
Can contact through another person count?
Potentially. The unpublished, nonprecedential Meyer opinion concluded that successful delivery to the potential witness was not required for its attempted first-degree theory. The evidence must still prove the accused directed or adopted the conduct and possessed the required intent.
What makes the charge aggravated first degree?
The person must cause great bodily harm or death or, through an implicit or explicit credible threat, threaten great bodily harm or death while intentionally committing one of subdivision 1b’s six acts. Ordinary bodily harm is not the same standard.
What is second-degree witness tampering?
It is a gross misdemeanor using one of § 609.27, subdivision 1(3)–(5)’s threats: harm to business/profession/calling, exposure of a secret or reputation-related harm, or making a criminal charge. The charge must also target testimony or crime information in one of subdivision 2’s four ways.
How is intimidation proved for third degree?
Subdivision 2a allows proof from a specific act or the totality of circumstances. Context can matter, but discomfort or pressure alone does not eliminate the need to prove intimidation and the specific intent to interfere or influence false information.
What are the maximum penalties?
Aggravated first degree carries up to 20 years and/or $30,000; first degree up to five years and/or $10,000; second degree is a gross misdemeanor; and third degree is a misdemeanor. The maximum is not the presumptive sentence.
What should I preserve for a lawyer?
Preserve complete message threads, native files and metadata, call and jail recordings, letters, envelopes, witness and intermediary information, the complaint and reports, subpoenas and hearing notices, all orders restricting contact, medical evidence, and a timeline of the underlying case and disputed communication.
A lawyer’s file review of Tampering with Witness in Minnesota
Most bad early advice comes from answering the charge label instead of reading the charging clause. I begin with the operative count and work outward: definitions, exceptions, enhancement facts, evidence, procedure, and only then possible outcomes.
Read the count as a set of propositions the State must prove
For Tampering with Witness in Minnesota, the governing text begins with Minn. Stat. §§ 609.498, 609.27, 609.02, 609.035, 609.04, 609.135, and 628.26; 2026 Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines; State v. Collins, 580 N.W.2d 36 (Minn. App. 1998); State v. Evans, A19-1513 (Minn. App. June 22, 2020); and clearly labeled nonprecedential decisions discussed in the guide. That citation matters because a familiar charge name can contain several statutory routes, definitions, and sentencing rules. I read the exact count, the alleged date, and every incorporated definition before deciding which facts are material and which allegations are simply part of the narrative.
Next, I connect each material fact to evidence the prosecution can actually present. The source might be a witness, a recording, a certified record, laboratory work, device data, or an admissible inference—but it should be identifiable and testable. That approach shows whether the real dispute concerns what happened, how evidence was obtained, whether it is admissible, or whether it proves the required element at all.
The evidence I would ask for first
For Tampering with Witness in Minnesota, I would not begin with a canned list of defenses. I would begin with the source file: the charging paper, every police report, uncut recordings, witness interviews, warrants and returns, device and account records, photographs with metadata, expert or laboratory material, certified prior records, court orders, and any document the prosecution relies on to prove an element or increase the classification. A police summary can identify what an officer or witness says happened, but it cannot substitute for the recording, photograph, data, or document being summarized. The same is true of a complaint. It identifies the prosecution’s theory at the start of the case; it does not prove the theory.
I put those materials on one chronology. That lets me see what was known at each decision point, which account was contemporaneous, what appeared only after people spoke with one another, and where the record is silent. It also keeps an admissibility question separate from a factual one. A fact can be disputed even if the evidence was lawfully obtained. Evidence can also be accurate yet inadmissible for a particular purpose. Those are different arguments and should not be blurred together.
Read the charging document against the offense date
The alleged date matters because statutes, penalty thresholds, definitions, sentencing rules, and published decisions change. I save the version in force on that date and read the session-law history when the current online text is different. I also check whether a later amendment was merely clarifying or made a substantive change; that is a legal question, not an assumption. The same discipline applies to prior convictions and administrative events. A prior must fit the definition the charged statute actually uses, fall within any stated lookback period, and be proved by a reliable record.
I then compare the formal count with the probable-cause narrative and the discovery. If the prosecution’s theory shifts, I want the amended pleading and enough detail to prepare. If several factual alternatives are alleged, I identify whether they are separate elements, alternative means, enhancement facts, or merely evidentiary details. That distinction affects notice, motions, jury instructions, unanimity arguments, and how a verdict form should be read.
Separate an evidentiary weakness from a suppression issue
Not every troubling fact produces a motion to suppress. Suppression ordinarily requires a constitutional, statutory, or rule-based violation with a remedy that reaches the evidence at issue. A weak identification, an incomplete investigation, or a witness inconsistency may be powerful at trial without making evidence inadmissible. By contrast, a stop, search, interrogation, identification procedure, warrant, or test can raise a legal issue even when the resulting evidence appears incriminating. I analyze both tracks and do not promise dismissal simply because one problem exists.
For a search issue, I reconstruct what officers knew before each intrusion and what authority they claimed. For a statement, I examine custody, questioning, warnings, voluntariness, recording, and the complete context. For scientific or technical evidence, I request the method, underlying data, quality-control material, uncertainty information, and chain of custody. For hearsay or confrontation questions, I identify the actual statement, its purpose, the declarant, and the proposed foundation. Specificity matters; “the evidence is bad” is not a motion.
Prepare negotiation and trial at the same time
A plea decision should be compared with the case the State could present at trial, not with the complaint’s maximum penalty in isolation. I want to know the strongest admissible proof, the weakest required element, the realistic motion practice, the likely instructions, and the consequences of every proposed disposition. That includes custody, probation, treatment, restitution, driving, firearm restrictions, registration, employment or licensing, immigration consultation, family-court effects, and record consequences when they are actually triggered. I avoid telling a client that every collateral consequence applies to every conviction.
Trial preparation gives negotiation its credibility. Witness interviews, exhibit review, motions in limine, expert consultation, demonstrative evidence, jury instructions, and a clean theory of the case force both sides to confront what can be proved. Negotiation can continue while that work is underway. The two tracks are not opposites.
A case-law point worth keeping in its proper place
Appellate decisions matter, but a quotation should not be detached from the issue the court was deciding. In State v. Fleck, 777 N.W.2d 233, 236 (Minn. 2010), the Minnesota Supreme Court described sufficiency review as viewing the evidence “in the light most favorable to the conviction.” That is an appellate-review rule, not a reduction of the State’s trial burden. At trial, the prosecution still must prove every element beyond a reasonable doubt. I cite the case for the proposition it actually decided and then return to the charged statute, the jury instructions, and the admissible evidence in the present file.
What I would want you to understand before choosing an outcome
You should be able to identify the exact charge, the facts that set its level, the disputed elements, the evidence that matters most, the motions that have a legal basis, the realistic trial issues, and the concrete effect of each proposed resolution. If an answer depends on a missing report, recording, expert opinion, or certified record, I will say so. An honest answer about what remains unknown is more useful than a confident guess.