Is character assassination of witnesses allowed? Say that one side of a trial brings a witness Walter onto the stand. If the other side doesn't like Walter's testimony (and wants the jury to not take it seriously), are they allowed to engage in character assassination of Walter? For example, airing his past crimes, his controversial social media posts, etc.. To be clear, there is nothing material against the content of Walter's testimony. All they're doing is &quot;factually&quot; berating his character. As a follow-up, when cross-examining the witness Walter, is the attorney allowed to proceed down a line of questioning designed solely to twist the knife on the character assassination angle (as opposed to questioning about the actual testimony that was made)? For example, directly asking Walter about controversial tweets they made supporting Nazism, as opposed to anything relevant to the case. I'm not sure what the correct answer might be. On one hand, knowing that the witness has been untrustworthy in the past is pertinent information to be considered by the jury. On the other hand, focusing on a witness's unsavory beliefs is a massive and immaterial distraction that puts personal bias over actual facts.
It is allowed to introduce evidence that impeaches the credibility or reliability of a witness, which could include his previous 5 convictions for perjury. This does not constitute &quot;character assassination&quot;, so I'm not sure what you mean by that. A felony conviction can be admissible (assuming he was not exonerated). There are limits; for example, evidence of religious belief would be inadmissible, likewise holding an unpopular political belief. The evidence has to be connected to the witness's honesty.
Chain of custody and testimony in this regard. Say there is a murder victim, with DNA of the suspect under the fingernails and a knife with the suspect's bloody fingerprints stuck in the chest. There would be testimony what happened to the knife. If a paramedic removed it to attempt first aid, the paramedic would testify. So would the officer who bagged it, and the forensic analyst who took the fingerprints. A pathologist would testify if the knife was consistent with the stab wound (a careful pathologist could never swear that the knife was the cause of death, just that it matches). The pathologist would also testify how DNA was collected under the fingernails, and how it was sent to the lab. The defense may claim that the suspect also tried first aid, or that a corrupt cop forced the suspect to hold the knife. The court or jury then draw their conclusions from this and other testimony. Same here. A lifelike picture found on the web proves nothing. A witness who takes the stand to testify that he or she took a certain picture would be more credible. So would a forensic officer who testifies how she or he removed the data from a surveillance camera, checked for common signs of tampering, and then signed a copy of the data with a private key. (The signing shows no third-party tampering after collection, it is not evidence of integrity before that.) Years ago, in germany, there was the case of a bank robber who claimed that a fleeing suspect had handed him a bag of money in the forest and then vanished. &quot;Prove it wasn't so,&quot; he demanded. &quot;You can't. So there is reasonable doubt.&quot; Well, the court found that the statement merely created unreasonable doubt, and the sentence was upheld on appeal.
It has been along-standing principle in the US that names of jurors are publicly known, although there can be exceptions (US v. Barnes, 604 F.2d 121 (1979) is the first case of a fully anonymous jury. Now, except in the 10th Circuit, they are allowed and not extremely rare (I don't know what the percentage is). So it would depend on whether the particular jury list is public. Apart from the situation where a juror is harassed by the press and gets a court order to restrain approaches by a specific member of the press, if you can contact them, you can ask them questions. There cannot be a blanket "do not contact a juror" law / order in the US, which would be contrary to the 1st Amendment.
The Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination applies only in criminal trials, but it permits a witness to refuse to answer a question in either criminal or civil cases, including in a deposition. If he had committed crimes or thought that his answers might have incriminated him, he should have declined to answer. I'm not terribly familiar with this case, but it occurs to me that a lot of the allegations against Cosby go pretty far back; it could be that he was talking about something so far back that he wasn't exposed to any criminal liability. In a case like that, it may even be that a judge had already ordered him to answer the question. Assuming that he voluntarily answered the question, he has waived his right against self-incrimination and the testimony is generally admissible.
Your question is essentially this: consider a defamation lawsuit in which A alleges that B falsely stated that A did X (and it is not contested that B made the statement) also consider that B has done X in the past is it of any relevance to A's defamation suit that B has done X in the past canada Evidence must be relevant to a live, material issue In order for evidence to be admissible it must be &quot;relevant to a live, material issue in the case&quot; (this is from a dissent, but there is no disagreement about this point). Stage 1: Did B make a defamatory statement about A that was published - no relevance to this issue Defamation is prima facie proven if B's statement was published and if it tended to lower the reputation of A. The fact that B has done X in the past is irrelevant to this aspect of the analysis, especially when the defendant is not alleging that they did not say &quot;A did X.&quot; Stage 2: Defences - there is a very narrow path for relevance on this issue Once defamation is prima facie proven, the burden flips to the defendant to establish a defence. Of all the possible defences, the only one in which I could see B having done X in the past being relevant is the defence of fair comment: (a) the comment must be on a matter of public interest; (b) the comment must be based on fact; (c) the comment, though it can include inferences of fact, must be recognisable as comment; (d) the comment must satisfy the following objective test: could any [person] honestly express that opinion on the proved facts? (e) even though the comment satisfies the objective test the defence can be defeated if the plaintiff proves that the defendant was [subjectively] actuated by express malice. The fact the B has done X in the past could be relevant to this defence if B were to use that familiarity with the activity X as part of the commentary on why they believe that A has done X. It could also be relevant (not on its own, but along with much more context) for an allegation of malice on B's part. Conclusion: Evidence that B did X in the past would likely not be relevant I see it very unlikely that B having done X in the past would be relevant. It would likely be treated as a collateral issue, unless B's credibility somehow became absolutely central to the litigation and if the judge was convinced that such acts relate to credibility. On the facts as described, and even for a fair comment defence, I don't see that being the case.
Is this realistic? Yes. The dramatic performance plays out in the same way that it would in the U.S. Court system. The actual killing of the wife would be 'legal', so can he be charged for murder for something that has been done legally, only because they can prove is intent to kill her before that? Especially since he has already been acquitted of that fact. Mostly, this is an issue of causation and not double jeopardy. From a double jeopardy perspective, the crime of murder is not complete until the person dies, and they have not be tried for murder, so this is a different crime that had not occurred until after the attempted murder trial was over. Causation Issues Even if the immediate cause of the wife's death is withdrawal of life support, the shooting could still be a legally sufficient cause of the wife's death. For example, suppose that you shoot someone and the hospital can't give the victim a blood transfusion because the victim has blood type O- (universal donor) which can only receive blood from other people with blood type O-, and the hospital, due to negligence on the part of a hospital administrator, has run out out of type O- blood. The fact that the victim would not have died if the hospital has not negligently failed to have type O- blood on hand does not provide a defense to murder on the part of the person who shot her. While terminating life support is "legal" it also constitutes a non-judicial finding with legal effect on the part of the person authorizing it and the physicians signing off on the decision, the further medical care would have been futile and that the person whose life support was terminated was already dead in key material respects, even though they would not be dead for purposes of a murder charge until life support is terminated. When death is a natural and foreseeable result of action that causes physical harm, the death is caused by the act that causes the physical harm. Something else that causes death would have to be a "superseding cause" and not just an additional cause of death. Thus, the fact that life support was terminated legally does not mean that she cannot be a murder victim. Indeed, many murder victims are people who are on life support for some period of time and then have that life support terminated because it is futile to continue medical care and the person is already "brain dead" or something equivalent to that. Collateral Estoppel Issues Double jeopardy does carry with it a related concept of "collateral estoppel" which provides that facts necessarily decided in one criminal case cannot be decided differently in a subsequent, related criminal case in some circumstances. But, collateral estoppel applies only when the facts in the prior criminal case were necessarily decided on the merits in the prior criminal case. Acquittal of criminal charged does not necessarily include a determination that someone was innocent of the charges. The fact that he was acquitted of attempted murder does not mean that the jury found that he didn't attempt or intend to murder her. In particular, a dismissal of criminal charges as a result of a technicality that excluded evidence related to an element of the crime for which there was an acquittal, is not a determination on the merits that a particular element of a crime was actually absent, so it would not be binding in the subsequent criminal case for murder. An acquittal does not mean that every element of the prior criminal charges was found not to be present. Collateral estoppel arising from the double jeopardy right, in contrast, might be a ground for dismissal of the murder case, if the man's primary (and perhaps only) defense to the attempted murder case had been that he had established the affirmative defense that someone else committed the murder, or that he had an alibi that made it impossible for him to have committed the murder. Then, the jury would have found on the merits that this defense, equally applicable to the murder case, had already been established.
I think you're referring to this image: This is the prosecutor pointing the AR-15 at the jury. Evidence, including guns, is allowed in the courtroom, but the prosecutor was widely criticized for his dramatic antics: pointing it directly at the jury, with his finger on the trigger (the rifle should have been checked for being empty, but not having your finger on the trigger unless you intend to shoot, no matter what, is elementary gun safety).
The word argumentative can mean a number of things. However, when defined as in the passage quoted from Wikipedia, it is not the opposite of 'conciliatory.' It has nothing to do with whether the witness is cooperating with the lawyer examining them. In this context, an argumentative witness is one who gives evidence about a legal conclusion (that is, the answer to a legal 'argument'). This is not allowed, because witnesses must give evidence of fact and not opinion. Sometimes, the distinction is murky. The example given is 'was the driver negligent?' The answer could well be seen as 'conciliatory' if it is consistent with the case being advanced by the advocate. It is still an impermissible argumentative question, because it is a question of law for the court to decide, not a question of fact. Suppose the lawyer wants to prove that a driver was negligent. An eyewitness could give evidence about what he or she saw and heard. A qualified professional could give expert evidence about what can be inferred from the physical evidence or agreed facts (eg. whether anybody was speeding). In the unlikely event that the driver admitted fault but a trial was still necessary, the driver could give evidence that they were drunk or not paying attention. None of these witnesses can express an opinion as to whether or not the driver was negligent, because that is the argument that the court has to decide by drawing inferences from the witnesses' factual evidence. In this context, the opposite of argumentative could be admissible, factual, direct or non-opinion.