Witness stand

“ You have wilfully introduced a witness into your life, the scene of these defeats, and can no longer close the mind's eye upon uncomely passages, but must stand up straight and put a name upon your actions. ”

“ The examination of a witness ought to be conducted by the witness standing up and the counsel standing up, and looking each other in the face, without the counsel directing his remarks to the jury by turning towards them instead of turning towards the witness. ”

“ Every lawyer is familiar with this distinction. The court may know that the accused is guilty, the jury may know it, the attorneys may be perfectly sure of it, but if the verdict of guilt returned by the jury into court is not based upon testimony that 215came from the witness stand from witnesses who were under oath, and that had submitted to cross-examination, such verdict would hardly be sustained on appeal. ”

“ But, if credit enough is not given to my own solemn affirmation, nor to this Public Testimony, Thee, Lord God, I make finally my witness, who explorest the inmost recesses of the spirit, who triest the reins, and knowest the secret motives of the breast, a Searcher of hearts to whom, as if by thorough dissection, all things are bare. Thee, God, Thee I call as my witness, who shalt one day be my Judge and the Judge of all, whether it is not the case that men see in this heart of mine what Thou seest not. ”

“ At the time of judging, the witnesses are not brought to the bar as in England, but the ‘confrontation’ and ‘recollement’ only are produced; and as each witness has been separately examined, without knowing what any other has said, it is a good way of eliciting the truth. It is all important, you must perceive, for the accused to be on the alert to discover, if possible, any falsehood in the witnesses. ”

“ It is objected, fifthly, that “The direct witness of the Spirit, does not secure us from the greatest delusion. And is that a witness fit to be trusted, whose testimony cannot be depended on? That is forced to fly to something else, to prove what it asserts?” I answer. To secure us from all delusion, God gives us two witnesses that we are his children. ”

“ I have no testimony from the sons of men. God is my witness, and my words and deeds bear witness to the truth;
20. And every man who comprehends the truth will hearken to my words, and in his soul give witness unto me. ”

“ The witness who knowingly perverts the truth, often betrays his mendicity by his voice, his countenance, or his choice of words; while the unconscious perverter gives his testimony with all the force of sincerity. Let the witness who intends to give evidence worthy of confidence, be on his guard against the temptations to become a partisan. ”

“ It is probable, therefore, that the intended antithesis relates not so much to the actual fact of truth saving and falsehood condemning, as to the dispositions and intentions of the faithful witness on the one hand and the lying witness on the other. The faithful witness delights in giving testimony that may save life, that will be salutary and beneficial to his fellow-creatures. ”

“ An account of an extraordinary occurrence given by an honest witness is, of course, generally preferable to a statement of the same occurrence merely obtained from hearsay; and the evidence of the witness deserves all the greater attention if he shows himself to be an intelligent and keen observer. ”

“ The custom of permitting a witness to wander at will over the entire field of knowledge, hearsay, surmise and opinion has several distinct advantages over our practice. In giving hearsay evidence, for example, he may suggest a new and important witness of whom the counsel for the other side would not otherwise have heard, and who can then be brought into court. ”

“ When witnesses completely fail.
In the present case, I have a witness, the goddess of the wood. She will reveal to you which one of us is guilty, which not guilty." And they replied: "You are quite right, sir. ”

“ Opinion.—The rule excluding expressions of opinion also dates from the first distinction between the functions of witnesses and jury. It was for the witnesses to state facts, for the jury to form conclusions. Of course every statement of fact involves inference, and implies a judgment on phenomena observed by the senses. And the inference is often erroneous, as in the answer to the question, “Was he drunk?” A prudent witness will often guard himself, and is allowed to guard himself, by answering to the best of his belief. ”

“ There is not a witness who has been discovered in this case since the coroner's jury that is not a suspicious witness. Did you notice the peculiarity of the witnesses? I never saw such a body of witnesses and you never did. They have eyes like the eagle; like the owls they can see better and farther by night than by day. Their hearing is as sensitive as that of the deer that roams through our northern forests. Their perceptive faculties are marvelous. Their recollection is beyond conception. They can remember the slightest circumstance. ”

“ Assembling the false witnesses into a house by night, he will cunningly dissect it, dictating to each witness the part he is to tell, repeating it over and over until the man has it by heart, even interpolating some trifling discrepancy, so as to render it more life-like. ”

“ Indeed, it is often a wonder to me that witnesses of ordinary events who are called upon in court to relate what they saw after a considerable lapse of time are as accurate as they are, considering the questioning they often go through from interested parties, neighbours and friends, and the constant and often biased rehearsing of the event. The court asks the witness to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. ”

“ If it is suggested that the witness of two is to be taken against that of one, not only is the testimony dealt with in that commonsense fashion against which the theologians of his school protest so warmly; not only is all question of inspiration at an end, but the further inquiry arises, After all, is it the testimony of two against one? ”

“ The alms in our hand will be a witness for us. Our father at our head will be witness for us". "This is what I desire, this is what my soul wants. "When I ascend to the house of life and go to the light dwelling, when life queries me, witnesses will come and testify. True witnesses they are, true is all that they say." And life is victorious. ”

“ I shall afterwards remark upon this, because I think it pregnant with importance as to the witness’s testimony, for I think he was not there at all. With the experience which you have had in courts of justice, some of you may have felt astonished that my learned friend did not proceed further into the cross-examination of this witness. Every art has its own difficulties, and my learned friend never shewed more consummate skill in his art than when he refrained from further cross-examination of this witness. ”

“ Therefore, because it is written in your law that the witness of two men is true, receive our witness, lest ye feel our judgment. “For I,” saith He, “judge not any man; but I bear witness of myself:” I defer judgment, I defer not the witness.
11. Let us, brethren, choose for ourselves God as our judge, God as our witness, against the tongues of men, against the weak suspicions of mankind. For He who is the judge disdains not to be witness, nor is He advanced in honor when He becomes judge; since He who is witness will also Himself be judge. In what way is He witness? ”

“ And the fact that the witness has been found quite candid against himself, where there is occasion, will give a double weight to his every direct testimony to the possibility of a life lived in the hourly peace of God. ”

“ I. The purpose: ‘Ye shall be witnesses unto Me.’ It in clear, therefore, that the power is a power of testimony, and that its great object is to enable us to be witnesses unto the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are not, therefore, judges. The witness is never the judge. His business is to bear testimony as to what he has seen and heard. But he has nothing to do with the sentence. That rests with the judge alone. So the witness for Christ is not the judge over his follow-men. He cannot sit in the Confessional and pronounce the sentence p. 10of life and death. ”

“ As a witness: "Never bear a testimony against any man without cause, unless what thou sayest thou knowest to be punctually true and thou hast a clear call to testify it. Never bear a false testimony against any one;" for it follows, " Deceive not with thy lips; deceive not the judge and jury, deceive not those whom thou conversest with, into an ill opinion of thy neighbour. When thou speakest of thy neighbour do not only speak that which is true, but take heed lest, in the manner of thy speaking, thou insinuate any thing that is otherwise and so shouldst deceive by innuendos or hyperboles." ”

“ Every lawyer knows how lightly the evidence of a non-mi-recordo witness is esteemed. The testimony of false witnesses will not be uniform in its texture, but will be unequal, unnatural, and inconsistent. ”

“ Though in human courts, where two witnesses are required, the criminal or candidate is not admitted to be a witness for himself; yet in a matter purely divine, which can be proved only by a divine testimony, and God himself must be the witness, if the formality of two or three witnesses be insisted on, there can be no other than the eternal Father, the eternal Son of the Father, and the eternal Spirit. ”

“ It is to confirm, or dissipate this, that nearly every man upon the ground—every woman as well—chafes at the absence of that witness, whose testimony is expected to restore the accused to his liberty, or consign him to the gallows tree. ”

“ No man possessed more fully the gift of divining quickly the temperament of a witness, of framing his questions in terse and homely language, and of coaxing a vital admission, as if he were merely seeking the disclosure of a harmless fact. ”

“ With the enactments concerning false witness, cp. Ex. xx. 16; Deut. v. 20, etc. More especially, however, are the directions in Deut. xix. 16 ff. noteworthy. Here the direction is, to do to the false witness “as he had thought to do to his brother.” ”

“ If the testimony of a contemporary, and, as it were, ocular witness, who has no prejudice or interest in the matter, were necessary to establish that the fact I am about to speak of is among the number of those which are true in all circumstances, I would freely give it without fearing that any man, of the least information, could ever accuse me of error or partiality. ”

“ We invite all men to walk in this path, and we are fearless as to the result, for in my own experience, in hundreds and thousands of instances, I have received a witness and testimony that this is the truth. Thousands of Latter-day Saints can bear the same testimony, and we desire that all the honest in heart may receive this testimony, and know for themselves. ”

“ One positive fact, it will be said, attested by so competent a witness, ought to have outweighed any amount of negative testimony, previously accumulated, respecting the non-occurrence elsewhere of human remains in formations of the like antiquity. ”

“ The testimony of the other witness also should be rejected, as he supposes this person to be his wife, who leads a quarrelsome life with him, and bears him great enmity; which is the truth.
12. The prisoner supposes that the cause of the misfortune in which he now finds himself, is, his having given his wife a good beating on the festival of the Resurrection, on which account she probably has directed her malice against him, and suborned the other witnesses; which is the truth. ”

“ The most excited witness can be brought by the judge to a sober and useful point of view, and conversely, the most calm witness may utter the most misleading testimony if the judge abandons in any way the safe bottom of the indubitably established fact. ”

“ Witnesses of a low grade of intelligence, when they testify falsely, usually display it in various ways: in the voice, in a certain vacant expression of the eyes, in a nervous twisting about in the witness chair, in an apparent effort to recall to mind the exact wording of their story, and especially in the use of language not suited to their station in life. ”

“ You might think a witness a person to be treated with respect, to be attended to, to have every facility offered him for giving his evidence at the least cost of time and trouble possible, consistent with the demands of justice, and the vindication of law and authority. ”

“ TO determine exactly the credibility of a witness, and the force of evidence, is an important point in every good legislation. Every man of common sense, that is, every one whose ideas have some connexion with each other, and whose sensations are conformable to those of other men, may be a witness ”

“ So that this is not another witness, but the very same that he mentioned before: the consciousness of our good works being only one branch of the consciousness of our sincerity. Consequently, here is only one witness still. If therefore, the text speaks of two witnesses, one of these is not the consciousness of our good works, neither of our sincerity; all this being manifestly contained in ‘the testimony of our spirit.’ What, then, is the other witness? ”

“ The deep sense of the vast importance of the events to which he was a witness makes him the more scrupulous in testing their real character. He resists the temptation to dwell upon those noisy and questionable manifestations in which the vulgar thirst for the wonderful found the most appropriate testimony to the work. ”

“ As it shall be always far from me to seek a quarrel, so will I always be ready to meet with any that is desirous to make tryal of my valour, by so fair a course as you require. A witness whereof yourself shall be, who, within a month, shall receive a strict account of time, place and weapon, where you shall find me ready disposed to give honourable satisfaction, by him that shall conduct you thither. ”