Adapt the oath of truth to a reasonable version? I find the oath Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? an almost absurd request. It is common-sense that nobody knows the whole truth about anything, so how could one ever disclose the whole truth? (Socrates would certainly be impressed.) I believe for reasonableness' sake we could understand that oath as Do you swear you will give us your best account of what you believe is true? So my question here is: If I answer the oath with I cannot tell the whole truth, because I cannot possibly know the whole truth. But I swear I will try to give my best account of what I believe is true. will that answer be refused and ultimately qualified as contempt of court? Such a concern may sound a pedantic nitpick but, honestly, I would feel uneasy swearing something that is false taken literally in such a formal environment as a court, where things are usually taken literally.
I think you should take &quot;the whole truth&quot; as simply short for &quot;all the truth known to the witness, within the limits of the rules of evidence as applied by the judge.&quot; and take &quot;nothing but the truth&quot; to mean &quot;no intentionally false statements included&quot;. I cannot be sure, but I suspect the response in the question would not be accepted, and if persisted in, might well lead to your being found in contempt of court. I would add that legal proceedings are absolutely full of symbolic or metaphorical things which are not to be taken literally, but as symbols for truths, or as historical vestiges of earlier realities. For example, in the US, criminal cases are normally known by a name such as &quot;the people of the State of Franklin vs R. Roe&quot;, and in the UK as &quot;The crown against R. Roe&quot; or 'Regina v R. Roe&quot;. Now neither the whole mass of the people nor the UK monarch has approved or brought any such case. It is has been brought on their behalf by the prosecutor. The defense may not argue that the people in general, or the Queen, would not have approved the case. (Nor can the people or the Queen object with any effect.) A US Judge is addressed as &quot;Your Honor&quot;. No one assess or argues whether a particular judge is in fact honorable, although in some cases it might be doubted. (When Justice Chase was impeached, his trial was presided over by then-vice President Aaron Burr. A sarcastic newspaper article commented &quot;It is usual to arraign the murderer before the Judge. In this case the reverse procedure was followed.&quot; A reference to Burr's having killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel.) The vary names &quot;Roe&quot; and &quot;Doe&quot;, commonly used for unknown legal parties, are a remnant of a piece of legal fiction once known as &quot;common recovery&quot;. When a person wanted a quick trial of ownership of a plot of land, he filed a trespass action, alleging that he had rented the land to John Doe, but that Richard Roe, claiming under a lease from the other actual party, had ejected Doe with &quot;force and arms&quot;. The defendant was not allowed to contest the existence of Doe or Roe, or the use of &quot;force and arms&quot;, but only the actual land ownership. Until fairly recently affidavits often began &quot;Now Comes J Smith, who deposes and says...&quot;, this being a remnant of the long-ago time when Smith would have actually come before a court to give his testimony. Much of the formal ceremonial of court procedures is not meant to be taken too literally, but as a symbol or metaphor.
No. Jurors generally do not receive such an instruction and it is not a rule of law or evidence. Jurors have to rule in accordance with the law, but how they judge the credibility of witnesses may be influenced by emotional factors. How the witness says something is as much a part of the evidence as what they say.
In many jurisdictions, there is a "witness fee" that one is required to pay, as a token recognition of the value of a person's time. Fact witnesses can often be obligated to appear and testify, for minimal compensation, but not against themselves. In federal cases, Rule 17(b) of the Rules of Criminal Procedure permit the defendant to apply to ask the government to pay the witness fee if they cannot afford it and the presence of the witness is necessary for an adequate defense. The other side of a case (in this example, the prosecutor) could try to impeach the witness's testimony (i.e. make him seem less credible in the eyes of the jury) by demonstrating that the witness is a "professional witness" (i.e. fees from saying things in court are a major part of the witness's regular income). That doesn't seem to apply to the facts you've listed, where the witness just happened to be in that place and time to observe what happened and (assuming for this question) accurately testified as to what he saw. Personally paying the police officer or judge for a favorable result is a different question with a different answer.
One can find contradictory claims out there. Here is an English version of the marriage law. There is a surprising amount of legal rigamarole (in Norway, as well) pertaining to clearing "impediments". Assuming that the parties have done their part, then we move to Chapter 4. Article 16: Marriage may take place before a minister of the church, a representative of a registered religious organization empowered to perform such ceremonies, cf. Article 17, or before a civil official so empowered So turning to Article 17: Religious solemnization of marriage shall be performed by the ministers of the National Church, and priests or other representatives of registered religious organizations in Iceland who have been empowered to perform such ceremonies by the Ministry of Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs and that is now part of the Ministry of the Interior. I can't find any indication that ULC has been approved. There are 49 religions officially listed by Statistics Iceland, including Siðmennt, a secular humanist organization which gained official status on May 3rd, 2013 when the organization was officially registered as a secular life stance organization under a law passed in the Icelandic Parliament on January 30th of that year. A formal ceremony was held by the Interior Minister Ögmundur Jónasson who had strongly supported our cause, to mark this historical event. As a result, Siðmennt gained the same legal and funding status as religious life stance organizations in Iceland. Weddings conducted by Siðmennt celebrants since then are legal and couples no longer have to go to government offices for that purpose. In light of the fact that Siðmennt is officially listed and ULC is not listed, I would conclude that you did not accidentally marry anyone, even if they had dealt with the impediments.
Legalese The purpose of a legal document is to set out the rights and responsibilities so that: they can understand them, a third party (e.g. a judge) can rule on them in the event of a dispute. These two requirements are often in tension. We have about 1,000 years of legal precedent where certain words and phrases (sometimes in Latin rather than English) have developed very clear and precise meanings. This serves very well for the 2nd point but it can be confusing to lay people especially where: the word as used in everyday speech has a broader meaning than the way it is used in the law (e.g. shall), the word is no longer used in everyday speech (e.g. thou), or the damn thing is in Latin (e.g. certiorari). For example: "Thou shall not kill" is a legal prohibition - killing by you must not happen. However, "Killing is illegal" is merely an observation. TL;DR There is no reason why an agreement cannot be expressed in plain English. However, when put in front of a judge, that plain English must be interpreted; maybe it is better to use words that have clear and unambiguous legal definitions? An anecdote, probably untrue In the spirit of never letting the truth get in the way of a good story. The legal fraternity's love of opaque language supposedly dates from the 1600s. In those days a lawyer was paid by the folio - a large piece of paper. As a consequence lawyers used very big handwriting. Parliament, justifiably, thought that this was a rort and legislated that lawyers must be paid by the word. So now we have "in the event that" instead of "if" because 400 years ago it was worth four times as much. Parliaments do this kind of thing a lot.
I'm sorry to deflate what is clearly a very philosophically interesting question, but the law is straightforward here. The truth, essentially, is the set of facts that you believe to be true. Yes. It means that you will not lie by omission, and that you will provide the relevant facts. No, you don't need to recount history since the first instant of the big bang. Only expert witnesses may answer by giving their opinion or evaluation. This is presumed accurate by their experience and where it is not accurate, the other side may present opposing expert witnesses to contest their conclusion or evaluation. Laypeople are permitted to answer only with their recollection of facts. Lawyers may not ask them what their opinion is, although by your definition every question is about opinion, since perception and memory is limited. But the question "What colour was Mr Smith's house?" and "What architectural style informed the facade of Mr Smith's house?" require different amounts of expertise and opinion. "Truth" isn't jargon, or even technical language here. I generally aim to be truthful, and so when someone asks me what time it is, I don't feel compelled to answer to the nano/picosecond. Would you call me a liar? Am I lying by omission? Similarly, if someone asks me what colour a car is, I don't feel compelled to say "I can't possibly know, because my perception may differ from yours. If you honestly feel that when someone asks you to be truthful about something, then you must either be lying, or lying by omission if you don't start your answer with the first instant of the big bang, your problem is not one of law.
You would think so, but no While at first glance, President Trump sending a staff member to testify under oath in his place (to nullify any personal risk of perjury?) appears to epitomize the concept of &quot;hearsay&quot;-- a statement that: (1) the declarant does not make while testifying at the current trial or hearing; and (2) a party offers in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted in the statement --there are some subtle but important distinctions and exceptions in play. I'm going to list them off in increasing order of relevance. FOIA penalties are civil, not criminal The official DOJ website lists off the penalties for Freedom of Information Act violations: The court may award reasonable attorney fees and other litigation costs against the government when the complainant substantially prevails. See 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(4)(E). Action Against Individual Employees: Sanctions may be taken against individual agency employees who are found to have acted arbitrarily or capriciously in improperly withholding records. Additionally, the court must award attorney fees and other litigation costs against the government. When the statutory requirements are found by the Court to have been met, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) must promptly initiate a proceeding to determine whether disciplinary action is warranted against the office or employee who is primarily responsible for the withholding. The MSPB, after investigating and considering the evidence, submits its findings and recommendations to the agency concerned which then is required to take the corrective action recommended by the Board. See 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(4)(F). Additionally, there now exists independent jurisdiction for such MSPB investigations under 5 U.S.C. Sec. 1206(e)(1) (1982). Failure to comply with a court order to produce the records in question may also result in punishment for contempt for the responsible employee. See 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(4)(G). So the strongest penalty against any individual government official who violated FOIA would be losing their job, or civil contempt of court. In principle the prohibition against hearsay applies equally to civil cases as criminal ones; in practice, because the stakes are lower, courts may take a somewhat looser attitude towards hearsay in civil cases than they would in a similar criminal case. Rule 807(a), &quot;Residual Exceptions&quot; Rule 807(a) gives courts large latitude to determine whether or not to admit hearsay evidence: (a) In General. Under the following conditions, a hearsay statement is not excluded by the rule against hearsay even if the statement is not admissible under a hearsay exception in Rule 803 or 804: (1) the statement is supported by sufficient guarantees of trustworthiness–after considering the totality of circumstances under which it was made and evidence, if any, corroborating the statement; and (2) it is more probative on the point for which it is offered than any other evidence that the proponent can obtain through reasonable efforts. In this situation, the presiding judge, Reggie Walton of the D.C. District Court, clarified what he would consider &quot;sufficient guarantees of trustworthiness&quot;: U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton issued the rare order to the White House last week after expressing dissatisfaction with a previous explanation submitted by the Justice Department’s top career official, Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer. Weinsheimer said he had checked with an unidentified official in the White House counsel’s office and determined that no new declassification was triggered by Trump’s latest tweets. However, Walton said given Trump’s suggestions of a rogue element undercutting his orders, some assurance directly from the president or someone who had spoken to the president was necessary. As Meadows had, one presumes, literally spoken to the president, this satisfied the presiding judge's own explicit standard of &quot;sufficient guarantees of trustworthiness&quot; for when hearsay may be admitted into evidence. Rule 807(a)(2) is also relevant here, in its caveat that hearsay may be accepted into evidence when it is &quot;more probative...than any other evidence that the proponent can obtain through reasonable efforts&quot;. Arguably, forcing the POTUS to neglect his duties running the country and &quot;ending the pandemic&quot; long enough to testify in what is, in many ways, a run-of-the-mill FOIA case, would take too much effort to be &quot;reasonable&quot;. Which brings me to the next point: Rule 804(a)(1) and Rule 804(b)(5), &quot;Unavailability of the Declarant&quot; Rule 804(a)(1) discusses a specific exception to the hearsay rule when the declarant can't or won't personally testify: (a) Criteria for Being Unavailable. A declarant is considered to be unavailable as a witness if the declarant: (1) is exempted from testifying about the subject matter of the declarant’s statement because the court rules that a privilege applies As POTUS, it makes sense that Trump would have some degree of privilege or immunity from being deposed. If a sitting President could be dragged into court at will over any government litigation, no matter how mundane, to personally testify, it would be impossible to perform the functions of their office. Think about all of the live issues winding their way through the courts right now that Trump has tweeted about. Now, imagine the demands on his time if he was dragged into court to testify regarding every single one: &quot;Sorry Angela Merkel, I have to cancel our international summit this year, I'm giving a live deposition in 50 different court cases in the next three weeks and I don't have time to do 'foreign policy' right now. Hope no new World Wars break out! Good luck!&quot; Of necessity, a POTUS has to be permitted to delegate 99.9% of legal representation on matters of public policy to other Executive Branch officials, when it comes to who actually needs to be physically present in court. And since he is privileged from personally testifying, that means exception 804(b)(5) applies: (b) The Exceptions. The following are not excluded by the rule against hearsay if the declarant is unavailable as a witness: .... (5) [Other Exceptions .] [Transferred to Rule 807.] We discussed how Rule 807 applies in this circumstance up above. But I want to circle back to the idea that the President has to be able to delegate statements of official policy to other authorized government representatives, such as Meadows, because of the clinching exception: Rule 803(8)(A)(i): Public records of governmental policy aren't excluded by the hearsay rule Rule 803(8)(A)(i) tells us that: statements of public policy (such as, whether the government is going to declassify, or has already declassified, every document relating to the Russia investigation, specifically including Mueller report and FBI interview redactions) made by public offices or their official representatives (such as the POTUS's chief of staff, authorized to speak on behalf of the POTUS, clarifying the Executive Branch's stance on declassification) are not excluded by the hearsay rule: The following are not excluded by the rule against hearsay, regardless of whether the declarant is available as a witness: .... (8) Public Records. A record or statement of a public office if: (A) it sets out: (i) the office’s activities This makes sense given the purpose of the rule against hearsay. It's supposed to prevent innuendo and rumor from sneaking into the factual record when the facts are in dispute: &quot;I heard the defendant's mom say the defendant said he did it,&quot; related by the defendant's mom's bingo buddy, would deservedly raise some eyebrows around the bingo table, but isn't the kind of solid evidence an impartial trial requires. Statements of public policy and government action by public officials, on the other hand, have a lot more authority and credibility than what a friend of a friend of the defendant heard the friend say the defendant said. Meadows isn't (just) some random golf buddy of the President who overheard what the President was thinking when he made these tweets; he's the President's official delegate to the court, conveying the Executive Branch's official position on declassification. Such official statements are ordinarily presumed maximally trustworthy and reliable, at least partly for logistical reasons. Similar to how we can't ask Trump to cancel all the COVID task force meetings to clear his schedule and testify about some tweets, we can't drag every government officer who makes an out-of-court official public statement or record into court to certify it--at least, not every single time. The judicial branch of the government takes the word of other branches of the government mostly at face value†, and does not consider public records or statements in an official capacity as &quot;hearsay&quot; to be excluded from evidence. So the TL;DR version is: No, Meadows coming into court to convey this statement on behalf of his boss would not be excluded by the hearsay rule. †Significantly, statements or records regarding policy might be excluded as hearsay, per 803(8)(B), if the opposition demonstrates that the statement or record is somehow fishy or unreliable: &quot;(B) the opponent does not show that the source of information or other circumstances indicate a lack of trustworthiness.&quot; But in this instance, in order to demonstrate a &quot;lack of trustworthiness&quot;, the plaintiffs in the case--BuzzFeed, CNN, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center--would have to show that the government was actually declassifying and unredacting all material related to the Russia investigation, contrary to what Meadows claimed in court. Since the government is not actually doing this, the President's social media rants notwithstanding, the plaintiffs would be unlikely to prevail if they tried to use 803(8)(B) to get Meadows' testimony excluded as hearsay.
There is no hard and fast rule to determine what constitutes proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In the first instance, the judge (or jury, when there is a jury trial) decides this on a case by case basis. If the officer testifies that the matters recorded in the ticket are true because it was the officer's practice to always record accurately what happened in a ticket, this would ordinarily not be grounds for reversal of a conviction on the ground of insufficient evidence, unless other evidence somehow put the officer's testimony in serious doubt (e.g. a social media post clearly putting the officer in another location at the time that the ticket was allegedly issued). Normally, the only kind of evidence that would not result in a ticket being upheld on appeal would be the failure of the officer to testify at all.