Can witness from another state be held accountable? If it’s a family law. In some state, for example, Arkansas. Can I call a witness from a different state? Will court accept him? I’m asking because this witness is from a different state, then the court will not be able to hold him accountable since this witness is from a different jurisdiction. So this witness can say whatever and even lie and have no responsibility. Or does court have any strings to pull. Also, can the opposing part object my witness since he is from a different state? (Note: this witness never visited my state, and has always lived in that different state).
Perjury is a crime in every state, and being a resident of a state is not a requirement for criminality. You can't lie in court just because you don't live in a state of the court. Compelling testimony of an out of state resident will require a court from the person's state.
It seems generally uncontroversial that in examining a witness at trial, a lawyer may not ask questions implying that the witness has engaged in some wrongdoing, unless the lawyer has some basis for asking those questions. This is not true. A lawyer is allowed to guess and ask such a question, although if it assumes a fact not in evidence it could be objected to for lack of foundation. For example, the opposing counsel could object if the lawyer asked, "After you drank twelve beers at BigTown Sports Bar, isn't it true that you got into a car and drove away?", because there would be no evidence in the record at that point that he drank twelve beers at BigTown Sports Bar. For instance, in the absence of any evidence indicating that alcohol was involved, I would imagine that a plaintiff's lawyer in an accident case could not cross-examine a defendant with leading questions suggesting that he had been drunk at the time of the crash. Sure he could. He could ask, "Isn't it true that you were drunk at the time of the crash?" There is nothing objectionable about that question. If the answer was "no", however, and the lawyer had nothing else to back up that suggestion, the question might not help the case, but the question is proper. Sometimes a lawyer just has a hunch and goes with it, and sometimes the hunch is right. Is this rule codified in a rule of evidence or is it just rooted in the courts' ideas of decorum and propriety? I can see how it might implicate the Rules of Professional Conduct, but that wouldn't seem to provide a remedy to a party who was prejudiced by such behavior. I'm more interested here with civil cases than criminal, where a defendant's Sixth Amendment rights might be complicate the question. It isn't codified because such a rule does not exist. There are some special rules that apply to prosecutors, who are ethically required to bring criminal cases only when they believe that the cases are supported by probable cause. But, that rule applies at the case level and not at the question by question level. Lawyers are also prohibited, especially in criminal cases, from making statements asserting personal knowledge of the credibility of a defendant or witness. This is because this transforms the lawyer from an advocate to a credibility witness. But, the lawyer can ask a judge or jury to find that someone is not credible in closing argument based upon X, Y and Z evidence presented at trial.
In a deposition, attorneys are supposed to keep their objections short and refrain from making an objection that indicates to the witness how he should answer. A question might be objectionable because it lacks foundation, because it is compound, because it calls for speculation, etc. Example 2, for instance, could be said to assume that Ms. Redacted was involved, and I might not want my client to discuss how he would act in that situation. Some attorneys in that situation might say, "Objection, assumes that Ms. Redacted had anything to do with this, which you haven't proved, and it's impossible to say what would have happened under circumstances that never happened." This gives my client a pretty clear signal that he ought to make clear that Ms. Redacted wasn't around, and that he should try to avoid getting pinned down on any questions about what he would have done if she had been. This practice -- known as "a speaking objection" -- can be used to signal to the witness how best to answer, and it leads to huge fights in a deposition. To avoid those fights, courts have developed a practice of requiring lawyers to simply "object to the form," rather than coaching the witness. That puts the objection on the record so it isn't waived, and if it's truly problematic, the parties have an opportunity to explain in greater detail after the deposition is concluded.
Can Alice still get child support, or will she be denied because she can not definitively prove which man is the child's biological father? The legal standard is a preponderance of the evidence (i.e. more likely than not) and there is plenty of evidence that can be offered in addition to DNA evidence, such as testimony under oath from people in a position to know who was having sex with whom at the relevant times. Contrary to a common misconception, testimony under oath is still solid evidence that can support a verdict on appeal. Alice had neither a long standing romantic relationship with Bob nor anyone that was a witness to the sexual act, thus making the question of who she slept with difficult to prove. It isn't that hard to prove. Q to Alice's physician: Based upon an ultrasound, when did Alice conceive? A: April 5-8, 2021. Q to DNA expert: Based upon the DNA test, who could the father be? A: Billy or Bob. Q to Alice: Did you have sex with Billy between April 5-8, 2021? A: No. Q to Alice: Did you have sex with Bob between April 5-8, 2021? A: Yes. Q to Billy: Did you have sex with Alice between April 5-8, 2021? A: No. Q to Billy: Why not? A: I was at the Shuffleboard World Cup in Tibet, I have time stamped pictures. Q to Bob: Did you have sex with Alice between April 5-8, 2021? A: -- if Yes, judge says he believes Bob and Alice and the case is over. -- if No, the judge decides who among Bob, Billy, and Alice the judge believes based upon other evidence. Ultimately, the judge has to rule between the two based upon non-genetic evidence and resolve credibility disputes just as in any other case that doesn't involve DNA evidence (which is the vast majority of cases). Also, the edge cases are few are far between. Identical twins are rare to start with, and few women have sex with more than one identical twin in the several day period when she could have conceived or didn't know which twin she had sex with. It has happened at least once in history (post-DNA testing), but you can probably count the number of times that it has ever happened on one hand. For example, presumptions from cohabitation, marriage, and claims of paternity often resolve paternity disputes without DNA evidence. Further, to the extent that there is good faith uncertainty (perhaps everyone agrees that the mother has sex with both twins on the only possible day of conception and nobody really knows), the downsides to a mistake in the larger cosmic sense of the overall paternity law system are minimal, as identical twins very rarely become deeply alienated from each other and instead tend to be close and intensely cooperative once they discover each other, and tend to be similar to each other in almost every respect depriving the child of little if the court gets it wrong. Realistically, identical twins are particularly likely to settle out of court so the judge doesn't have to decide. In one of the only two actual cases I could locate that went to trial (in Brazil), both twins were ordered to pay child support because the evidence showed that they actively conspired with each other to confound the mother and the court regarding who the father was, and conspiracies can support joint and several liability. The other case reported in a news story had convincing circumstantial evidence supporting one identical twin over the other that probably establish a presumption of paternity for one twin and not the other. One of the twins, who cannot be named for legal reasons, went to court last summer in the hope of forcing the mother to grant him access to the child. Although his name is not on the birth certificate, he claims he is the only father the boy has known, cared for him every other weekend, provided financial support and was even known to him as 'papa'. But then the man's relationship with his girlfriend broke down and the visits halted. When he began legal proceedings to prove his paternity, the mother made her claim that she had been sleeping with his twin at around the same time. The twins have said they knew they were both having sex with the woman, but argue that only one had sex during the period of conception. Both refused to undergo a DNA test: the complainant refused to pay the £335 charge while his brother, who has since married and fathered children, does not consider himself involved in the dispute. Now, however, Judge Jolin has asked the complainant to take a DNA test by 1 December to ensure he can claim even possible paternity, while his brother may also be tested. (The second case is in Quebec and the cost of the test in pounds is apparently a currency conversion value.) (It is possible in principle to distinguish even identical twins from each other with high coverage whole genome tests that would reveal a few random mutations in each twin out of billions of possible mutations, but it is currently prohibitively expensive to do so.) Can she even get a paternity test given that it would not be definitive proof which man was the father? Yes. This rules out all 4 billion men in the world minus two of them. It has great probative value, narrowing the list of possible fathers down to two.
No In general, there is no need for a plaintiff, defendant, or witness to attend court in person if there is a legitimate impediment to them doing so. Parties can be represented by their lawyers, testimony can be made by affidavit, cross-examination can be conducted over Zoom. During the recent pandemic, entire cases, both criminal and civil have been dealt with without anyone meeting up in person.
It depends on the jurisdiction, but generally speaking, this will not permit you to evade criminal responsibility. In Ohio, for instance, the complicity statute treats the conduct you're describing as equivalent to soliciting another to commit an offense or to aiding and abetting another in committing an offense: No person, acting with the kind of culpability required for the commission of an offense, shall do any of the following: (1) Solicit or procure another to commit the offense; (2) Aid or abet another in committing the offense; (3) Conspire with another to commit the offense in violation of section 2923.01 of the Revised Code; (4) Cause an innocent or irresponsible person to commit the offense. The penalty for complicity is the same as for the underlying offense, so you don't really get any kind of break for running your offense through an innocent party; you just get a pissed off witness who can testify against you.
In all likelihood, the judge's order related to data collection and reselling is not legally enforceable. They weren't parties to the expungement action, so the judge doesn't have jurisdiction over them. And, the First Amendment protects the right to say truthful things pretty absolutely. Arguably, if the sites provided the information without making clear that it might not be current because records were expunged or corrected, there might be a claim for negligent misrepresentation, false light, or even defamation, but I seriously doubt that even those claims would hold up. The language in the order might cause sites to comply out of not legally justified concern, or just a desire to be accurate, even if it is not enforceable. So, it doesn't hurt to bring that information to the attention of such sites and ask them to take down the information. But, when push comes to shove, I very much doubt that you would prevail in court enforcing that order against them. Certainly, if you do nothing, they will do nothing, because they are not psychic and have no idea that the court order related to those records has been entered. Even a valid and enforceable order directed at a party over whom a court has jurisdiction is not effective until the person ordered to comply with it has notice of the order. And, there is no system that gives sites like that notice without you taking action to inform them of an order.
Yes. This is very common. A persnickety lawyer or judge could insist on an actual &quot;yes,&quot; but generally speaking, everyone expects witnesses to talk like normal people.