Witness box

“ Let the juryman ponder these things, and beware how he lets his mind lapse into a conclusion either for or against the prisoner. To perform the duties of his office, so that the days which he spends in the jury-box will bear retrospection, his eye, his ears, and his intellect, must be ever on the watch. A witness in the box, and the same man in common life, are different creatures. ”

“ Newdegate had a very bad time of it in the witness-box, and the verbatim report of his cross-examination [154] may be recommended to legal students as illustrating [Pg 279] the value of the testimony of an English gentleman and magistrate who believes devoutly in God, and holds that no unbeliever can be believed. A worse appearance has seldom been made in the witness-box by a man of standing ”

“ The box will be sealed (before the same witness) with my own seal. I shall keep it under my pillow, to give it myself to Professor Stein, if I live until he returns from Munich.
"'If I die while my executor is still absent, my beloved wife is the one person in the world whom I can implicitly trust to take charge of the sealed box. She will give it to Professor Stein, immediately on his return to Wurzburg; together with these instructions, which will be placed in the box along with the keys.'"
"There are the instructions, friend Fritz! ”

“ We are of opinion that, by the rules of evidence derived from the common law, as it is understood in the United States, whenever it becomes important to ascertain the contents of a box, trunk, or package which has been lost or destroyed, under circumstances that make some one liable in a court of justice for the loss, and the loss and the liability are established by other testimony, the owner or party interested in the loss, though he may be a party to the suit, is a competent witness to prove the contents so lost or destroyed. ”

“ that the aggregate testimony of our neighbours is subject to the same conditions as the testimony of any one of them. Namely, we have no right to believe a thing true because everybody says so, unless there are good grounds for believing that some one person at least has the means of knowing what is true, and is speaking the truth so far as he knows it. However many nations and generations of men are brought into the witness-box, they cannot testify to anything which they do not know. ”

“ By common custom the prosecutors established them selves within the rail to the right; the clerks and court stenographers claimed the center, and to the left sat the defense. The judge presided from a dais against the wall at the center; to his left, as he faced the room, was the witness stand, also confronting the room; and further to his left and facing, not the room, but the judge's seat and the witness stand, was the jury box. ”

“ Although we are mindful of the many subtle effects face-to-face confrontation may have on an adversary criminal proceeding, the presence of these other elements of confrontation-oath, cross-examination, and observation of the witness' demeanor adequately ensures that the testimony is both reliable and subject to rigorous adversarial testing in a manner functionally equivalent to that accorded live, in-person testimony. ”

“ And this confusion of thought and misunderstanding of those cases seems to have operated upon the mind of the trial court, for it said: 'It is a thing often done, and, when counsel say they are surprised by the way a witness recollects a thing, it is within the discretion of the court to allow counsel to direct the attention of the witness to something which may refresh his recollection.' But the right of counsel to refresh the memory of a witness in no way depends on the surprise which may have been created by the testimony of the witness. ”

“ The pretrial confrontation for purpose of identification may take the form of a lineup, also known as an 'identification parade' or 'showup,' as in the present case, or presentation of the suspect alone to the witness, as in Stovall v. Denno, supra. It is obvious that risks of suggestion attend either form of confrontation and increase the dangers inhering in eyewitness identification. ”

“ The 'tained fruit' determination required by the Court involves more than considerable difficulty. I think it is practically impossible. How is a witness capable of probing the recesses of his mind to draw a sharp line between a courtroom identification due exclusively to an earlier lineup and a courtroom identification due to memory not based on the lineup? What kind of 'clear and convincing evidence' can the prosecution offer to prove upon what particular events memories resulting in an in-court identification rest? ”

“ If the detainee requests witnesses or evidence deemed not reasonably available, the President of the Tribunal shall document the basis for that decision; to include, for witnesses, efforts undertaken to procure the presence of the witness and alternatives considered or used in place of that witness’s in-person testimony.Burden of Proof. Tribunals shall determine whether the preponderance of the evidence supports the conclusion that each detainee meets the criteria to be designated as an enemy combatant. ”

“ Any observer who should have seen the neatly-dressed lawyer peering into the broken doors and up the black staircases of Thomas Street, would naturally have supposed his visit connected with some revelation of crime, and that he was either looking up a witness whose testimony might be necessary to save a perilled burglar from Sing Sing, or taking measures to keep one hidden who might have told too much if brought upon the witness-stand. ”

“ The defendant may say: “I have already told to the officers all that I know about this case, and my statements have been put in evidence. Whatever is mysterious to others is also a mystery to me. I have no knowledge more than others have. I have never professed to be able to explain how or by whom these homicides were committed.” There is another reason why defendant might not wish to testify. Now she is sacredly guarded by the law from all unfavorable inferences drawn from her silence. If she testifies she becomes a witness, with less than the privileges of an ordinary witness. ”

“ To be sure, the Government may inquire of witnesses before the grand jury as to the whereabouts of unlocated witnesses; ordinarily the answers to such questions are harmless if not fruitless. But of the seven questions relating to Weisberg (of which three were answered) , three were designed to draw information as to petitioner's contacts and connection with the fugitive witness; and the final question, perhaps an afterthought of the prosecutor, inquired of Weisberg's whereabouts at the time. ”

“ The latest device which my acquaintance with courts has brought to my knowledge is an alibi of a very refined and subtle nature. The hypothesis is, that the prisoner was walking from point A to point Z, along a distant road, at the hour when the crime was committed. The witnesses are supposed each to see him, and some to converse with him, at points which may be indicated by many or all the letters of the alphabet. Each witness must be alone when he sees him, so that no two may speak to what occurred at the same spot or moment of time ”

“ And I depend on the evidence of the prosecution’s witnesses”—he smiled at the prosecution’s witnesses—“to establish that no one rode in Redgate that day except me—and them! If the court will appoint some man known to be a rider and a marksman, and will instruct him to ride my horse by the courthouse windows, we can get this testimony over at once. It has been shown here that I carried a .45. Set up a box out there where we can see from the windows; give your man a gun and tell him to ride as close as he likes and put three shots in that box. ”

“ If the court knows that his adversary is tough, and the plaintiff claims that the witnesses are afraid of testifying because of the adversary and he has proof to this claim, the court may force the adversary to bring those witnesses. The same applies to similar issues that arise for a tough person. Ideally, witnesses must stand while testifying. If a witness is a scholar, we have him sit. See later at the end of this Siman.
Paragraph 6- Ideally, the judges should sit while accepting testimony. They must understand the language of the testimony and they may not hear it via a translator. ”

“ With the exception of the two insane [219] witnesses and the medical testimony founded upon the autopsy, there was no direct evidence on which to convict the prisoner but the statement of the newspaper reporter, Minnock. He was the one sane witness called on behalf of the prosecution, who was an eye-witness to the occurrence, and the issues in the case gradually narrowed down to a question of veracity between the newspaper reporter and the accused prisoner, the testimony of each of these witnesses being corroborated or contradicted on one side or the other by various other witnesses. ”

“ Nine times out of ten, it is avoided in the case of educated witnesses by the mere expedient of a legal fiction. The witness has a brief, like the barrister: he has consulted dates, he has made memoranda, he has frequently settled with solicitors exactly what he can safely say. His evidence is artificial even when it is not fictitious; we might almost say it is fictitious even when it is not false. The model testimony, regarded as the most regular of all in a law court, is constabulary testimony; if what the soldier said is not evidence, what the policeman says is often the only evidence. ”

“ DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, I do not believe that the desire to hear an important witness is incomprehensible in itself, if the cross-examination is rendered difficult for reasons over which we have no control. In the first place, I have only asked the Court for permission to submit an affidavit from this witness to the Tribunal. If now the affidavit is such. ”

“ If there are no witnesses that recognize the thief’s signature, he can write his signature and we will verify based on that as was explained above in seif 13. The same is true if the witness became an apostate after signature. He is treated just as if he became a thief.
Paragraph 35- If a witness signed on a document before becoming a party’s son-in-law and then later became his son-in-law, the witness cannot testify on his own handwriting. Others, however, may testify that they recognize his signature, even if they did not see it until after he became the party’s son-in-law. ”

“ In the ordinary course of legal proceedings, instruments under seal, purporting to be executed in the presence of a witness, must be proved by the testimony of the subscribing witness, or his absence sufficiently accounted for. Where he is dead, or cannot be found, or is without the jurisdiction, or is otherwise incapable of being produced, the next best secondary evidence is the proof of his handwriting; and that, when proved, affords prima facie evidence of a due execution of the instrument, for it is presumed that he would not have subscribed his name to a false attestation. ”

“ It is inconceivable that any court of justice in the land, conducted as our courts are, open to the public, would permit prosecutors serving in relays to keep a defendant witness under continuous cross examination for thirty-six hours without rest or sleep in an effort to extract a 'voluntary' confession. ”

“ The very form of the interrogatory, shows the question to have had relation to some antecedent inquiry, and is vague and indefinite. 'Were they not sent away, or intrusted to some person (naming no one) to be removed and sold by the administrator or administratrix, or other personsal representative of John Clark?' It seemed to be a fishing inquiry, that would hardly admit of a direct and positive answer. Had it been a direct question to some specific fact, the belief of the witness would be no legal answer. The belief of a witness is a conclusion from facts. ”

“ The strong light from the windows enables the witness to identify the prisoner, who stands shivering in the dock, at the same time that it permits the judges on the Bench and the counsel below in the hollow space of the Court to keep jury, witnesses and prisoners all at once within the same perspective line. ”

“ Shapter will stage-manage the thing, and all we’ve got to do is to dress up and play our parts like professionals. My eye! I hope there’s a coronet among the properties. You see, it’s got to the point when, in my opinion, a reputable independent witness is not only wanted, but indispensable. You can’t run this any longer on your own responsibility—you might get into no end of scrapes; and, as to me, why, I haven’t shown any partic’lar gift for doing the detective, have I?”
“You betray a tendency, perhaps, Johnny, to jump too hastily to conclusions.” ”

“ If the prosecuting attorney fails to file and serve a copy on the defendant of a list of witnesses as herein provided, the court may exclude evidence offered by the state in rebuttal to the defendant's alibi evidence. If such notice is given by the prosecuting attorney, the court may exclude the testimony of any witness offered by the prosecuting attorney for the purpose of rebutting the defense of alibi if the name and address of such witness as particularly as is known to the prosecuting attorney is not stated in such notice. ”