You can also attack a witness` testimony in the circumstances. I recently had a case. Someone claimed that my client was attacking them and they locked themselves in a room. Another way to discredit a witness is simply to confront him with another witness. To stay with our burglary example, there are perhaps 2 other people who are just as sure that the defendant is not the person they saw leave the store. In this case, there is no need to directly undermine opposing witnesses; Just to make sure the jury knows there are different opinions. How this is to be done depends on the witness. Let us say that a lawyer represents someone who has been accused of stealing a business. A key witness for the prosecution is an elderly person who was one block away.
Maybe this person has vision problems. The defense attorney doesn`t need to be too aggressive, but he certainly needs to make sure that the jury knows that it is very likely that the witness honestly misidentified the person. No matter what you`ve seen on TV, no lawyer will be completely surprised by what a witness says – especially a defense attorney who has a right to know what evidence the prosecution is making. The accused can say no, that did not happen. This is not the version of events that is true. It is not the version of events that is right under the circumstances. This is another way of attacking or accusing a witness` testimony. Evidence of certain cases of conduct by a witness to prove a character trait is inadmissible in order to attack the credibility of the witness. (Evid. However, past misconduct is admissible to show that the witness has a motive, bias or other interest that could lead to false testimony. (Evid. Code, § 780 (f)) The conduct of a witness may also be invoked for the purpose of impeachment.
If a witness says that he never acted in a certain way and there is evidence of that, his credibility is questioned. An example in a car case is an applicant who testifies that he is usually wearing a seat belt and that he did so during the collision, but subsequent monitoring by Subrosa shows that the witness was driving without a seat belt. By asking “yes” or “no” questions, lawyers ensure that witnesses cannot explain their answers in order to better put themselves in a better light. The narrow questions asked by lawyers often begin with “Is this possible” or “Is it not true?” because it is more difficult to answer these questions with a “no.” After you make your opening remarks, you will be asked to call your witnesses. The other party will also call witnesses. You must question your witnesses and have the opportunity to question the other party`s witnesses. Before your trial, you will want to think about the questions you should ask the witnesses. There are 2 ways to interview witnesses: The military commander insisted on the witness stand that the transfer had been approved.
But the defense used the circumstances to discredit the statement. It was found that the victim did not pack his clothes and make phone calls, which would have been typical behavior for someone who was supposed to be brought from the base early in the morning. The circumstances served to discredit the commander`s testimony. Be sure to read VAC Section 107 before your testimony and cross-examination of the witness. You will use this instruction when you graduate, so be sure to cut your cross on it. In addition, so-called intrinsic impeachment is available, and basically, it brings external elements to challenge their statements and version of events. And of course, you can call a criminal defendant in a case and you can use that criminal defendant to challenge and charge a witness. A lawyer would not start by asking a defendant, “Did you murder your mother?” Singer says. Instead, a lawyer would say, “Isn`t it true that you had problems with your mother? Is it possible that there was a knife in the house that day? It drives witnesses crazy when they have to answer “yes” without explaining. Perhaps the most effective and commonly used form of damage to credibility is to prove a statement or conduct of the witness that is inconsistent with testimony in court. (Evid.
Code, § 780(h)) Inconsistency need not be a complete contradiction. The test is whether the previous statement does not correspond to the effect of the statement before the court. Menschen v. Spencer (1969) 71 Cal.2d 933, 941. In the Zimmerman case, defense attorney Don West rattled star witness Rachel Jeantel by pointing out a number of inconsistencies in her story. The prosecution also pointed to inconsistencies in their behavior, the jury`s consultant, Dr. Marshall Hennington, noted in an interview with Business Insider. If the witness interfered with your case during direct examination, you should first consider cross-examination to get useful facts. This would require a series of simple and short statements with which the witness would have to agree. This cross-examination may include confirmation of a schedule, the weather at the time of the occurrence, the persons present at the crime scene, the creation of the documentary evidence base, etc. While you may not want to give the offending witness more weight than necessary, you may need to do so if the witness is the only source of evidence. The arresting officer makes a statement, the detectives make a statement, the prosecutors make a statement, and often there are different statements and sometimes there are contradictory statements from the same witness or there are contradictory statements from the same victim.
The details of the case may be an opportunity to charge a witness. This usually occurs when a witness (expert or non-scientific witness) has a financial interest in some aspect of the case or outcome. The financial interest may go beyond the obvious financial benefit of being kept in the case or being paid for first-class travel to trial. The financial advantage may even be the possibility of being retained in other similar cases. So there must be other ways to discredit a witness` testimony to show that they are not telling the truth, and the way you do that attacks their credibility as a witness. You ask them about something they said that turned out to be false. They question them about the contradictory statements they have made. They question them about a possible motive for them to lie. That`s where a good lawyer comes in.