Can the accused change their mind about testifying mid-trial? USA criminal law As I understand it, under US criminal law, a defendant may decline to testify in their own trial. Suppose a defendant elects to testify in their own trial but decides that it is no longer in their best interest to continue. Can they leave the witness box at a whim. For example mid-question by either defence or prosecution. Could they perhaps say to the judge, &quot;I no longer wish to testify, may I step down?&quot; and the judge allow this? Conversely, if the trial is going badly and, at the last moment, they decide that they do want to testify in order to bolster their position, can they request this and it be granted, even at the last minute? Are there any precedents for these actions by a defendant?
Normally, the prosecution case will not rely upon the testimony of the defendant. Instead, the prosecution will call all of its witnesses until its evidentiary case is complete. Then, the defense case opens and it may call witnesses. The defense is not obligated to call all of the witnesses that it stated that it anticipated that it would call prior to trial and the jury doesn't know which witnesses the parties said that they anticipated that they were going to call and didn't call. Until the defense case is closed, the defendant can call himself or herself as a witness if he or she wishes to do so, but is not obligated to do so. Once a defendant starts testifying (generally in his or her own case) he or she has generally waived the Fifth Amendment right not to testify. So, the prosecution may cross-examine the defendant in this situation. But since the prosecution's case is usually already closed at this point, the prosecution's cross-examination is limited to the scope of the defendant's testimony under questions from his or her own lawyer (there are some nuances of how this is done when the defendant is self-represented and has no lawyer). The prosecution cannot expand the scope of questioning of the defendant to new topic areas. I can imagine deviations from this pattern in odd circumstances, but they would be very rare.
In the event that a lawyer stops representing the client, and the client openly has told the lawyer that they have committed a crime, would it be legal for the lawyer to testify against them? Generally, no. The attorney-client privilege survives the termination of the attorney-client relationship. So, the lawyer cannot testify against the client. There are exceptions to the general rule. The two most important ones are as follows: There is a crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege that applies when someone uses an attorney's services for the purposes of carrying out a crime and the attorney is a knowing or unwitting co-conspirator. For example, if the crime the client confesses to is to defrauding investors in a securities prospectus that the client has the lawyer draft for the client containing false information about the company and then tells the lawyer after it has been sent to investors who put lots of money into the company that the statements the client told the lawyer to put in the prospectus were intentional lies made for the purpose of defrauding the investors. An attorney is entitled to testify if the client effectively waives the privilege in the context of disputed issues between an attorney and a client such as a malpractice lawsuit or an ethics complaint lodged against a lawyer where the lawyer's testimony concerning the privileged communications is necessary to defend the lawyer. For example, if the client sues the attorney for malpractice for refusing to present a key witness at trial causing the client to lose the case, the attorney can defend himself or herself by stating that the attorney knew that the witnesses testimony would have been false because the client told him &quot;X&quot;.
Regardless of whether a defendant is a wife or husband in relation to a potential witness, the latter can always refuse to say jack or just go with the &quot;I can't recall&quot; thing. What, will they torture them? What's the point of these &quot;privileges&quot; then? There are actually two separate spousal privileges, the confidential communications privilege and the testimonial privilege. Confidential communications with a spouse are not admissible in evidence, even if the spouse wants to testify. This privilege is like an attorney-client privilege, or a psychologist-patient privilege, or the privilege that attaches to confessions made to a priest, reflects the long standing assumption that communications made in reliance on a confidential relationship should not be betrayed in court. There are often exceptions to the spousal privilege for domestic violence and child abuse. It applies even if the couple that was married at the time that the communication was made is no longer married. Part of the theory of the confidential communications privilege with a spouse is that these communications wouldn't have happened in the first place but for the privilege, and that communications between spouses serve a socially desirable end overall that should be encouraged, by strengthening marriages. The testimonial privilege is the privilege against testifying against a current spouse. In some jurisdictions this belongs to the testifying spouse, and in some jurisdictions it belongs to the spouse testified against. In Florida, it belongs to the testifying spouse in federal court and is not available in state court at all. This applies only to a current spouse and is designed to avoid forcing someone to have to choose between obeying the law and loyalty to their spouse. This usually has more exceptions than the confidential communications privilege and some jurisdictions don't have it at all. The law presumes that people who testify under oath will tell the truth and retains the right to punish them for contempt of court or perjury if they do not. The fact that someone can lie on the stand in ways that sometimes can't be caught is besides the point of whether it is fair to force a spouse to do that. Historically one goal has been to prevent domestic violence against a testifying spouse that might occur if the testifying spouse testifies truthfully but negatively against their non-testifying spouse. Also, there is a sense that the testimony offered may have more to do with the health of the marriage (being more or less favorable based upon that without regard to whether the testimony is truthful) and hence isn't reliable. It also prevent discovery in the course of a lawsuit from one's spouse, which could otherwise be used as a dirty litigation tactic to impact a litigant's family in a civil case primarily for purposes of harassment. Contempt of court sanctions against non-cooperative witnesses are not uncommon. Lots of witnesses aren't very sophisticated and aren't good at paying attention. When you start answering &quot;I don't know&quot; regarding your address, when the last time you saw your spouse in person, what kind of car you have, and whether you know what a copying machine is, it is often pretty easy to spot an intentionally uncooperative witness. Often there are prior unsworn statements or the witness is crystal clear on some points and yet claims no recollection on others. Procedurally, if the judge is convinced that someone is trying to obstruct the court a judge makes a finding of fact to that effect based upon observations that could support that conclusion in the testimony and evidence, higher courts on appeal have to defer to those findings. Appellate courts can't second guess trial court credibility determinations. So, it is a lot easier to establish grounds for contempt of court than one might theoretically expect. Perjury prosecutions are exceedingly rare (on the order of 1 per 200,000 people per year), and a majority of those prosecutions do not involve court testimony. But the legal prospect of being convicted of a felony for lying under oath in nonetheless a powerful one because a lot of tactical and practical decisions in court are based upon worst case scenarios, and it does happen now and then, a few times a year at least, in most states.
If no one objects to a leading question, then the judge does nothing. A judge does not generally pro-actively police the rules of evidence at trial. Also, there are circumstances when a judge has discretion to allow a leading question even when it wouldn't ordinarily be allowed to move the trial along on largely undisputed points or to allow in inarticulate witness to testify. The exception to judicial passivity in the absence of an objection at trial is "plain error" that is not "harmless error", which a judge has a duty to prevent or address even if no objection is raised by a party. But, offering a leading question when one is not allowed by the rules of evidence almost never constitutes plain error, and would almost always be considered "harmless error" even if it was objected to and the judge ruled incorrectly, unless the use of improper leading questions was pervasive and there was a contemporaneous objection by counsel. For example, allowing a prospective juror to serve as a juror, despite that juror saying in the jury selection process that he can't be impartial because the defendant committed adultery with his spouse, because neither the prosecution or the defense attorney moves to strike the juror for cause, rather than striking that juror for cause of the court's own accord, is the kind of conduct that would often be considered "plain error" that is not "harmless error."
I'd imagine that testimony from the defendant is rare enough that in the majority of cases, prosecutors do not meaningfully prepare for a cross examination. To the extent they do, I'd expect the preparation is similar to that for basically any other witness. So I wouldn't expect complicated flowcharts, because the general rule at trial is that you only ask questions whose answers are both known and helpful. So if I need to place the defendant at the OK Corral at 3 p.m., I'm only going to ask him where he was at 3 p.m. if I have evidence showing that fact is true -- maybe he gave a written statement to the sheriff, maybe he posed for a daguerrotype, whatever. I expect him to deny it, so I don't ask the question unless I have evidence more convincing than his denial. In this way, a defendant -- like any hostile witness -- is used less to provide any facts of their own, but rather as an involuntary narrator of my own story, authenticating evidence and validating the facts consistent with my theory of the case.
If you have something to say, you should have said it before now When a judge is about to hand down a decision the case is all but over. Just like figure skating at the Olympics, the points are scored even if nobody but the judges know what they are yet. The onus is on the parties to bring forward all the evidence and make all the submissions on the law that they want the judge to consider before and during the hearing. If they didn't then that's their fault and they can't introduce new stuff now. Now, it's not uncommon for a judge to share their thoughts during the hearing or in writing when considering written submissions. This is because their thinking on the law is at variance with what the parties are contending. The plaintiff says the law is X, the defendant says the law is Y, the judge thinks they're both idiots and the law is clearly Z. They will usually call for submissions on this because the judge's role is to decide the dispute between the parties on the evidence the contend -not to impose the judge's interpretation on them; by doing this the parties may relies the judge is right and a lot of the dispute disappears or they may convince the judge that they are wrong (it's not unknown) and move on from a clear agreed position.
This is a question of civil procedure more so than law. The customs and practices of civil procedure are established by legal precedent, not laws made by legislatures. In general, a witness can answer a question however they want as long as it is responsive to the question. Litigators will attempt to bully a witness into certain types of answers, but this is not "illegal" nor is it "illegal" for witnesses to craft their answers as they like. As for yes-no bullying there are two general cases: (1) The question is factual. If the questioner asks a purely factual question, like "Did you go to the factory on that Tuesday?" then a yes-no answer can be compelled. If the witness tries to explain why he went to the factory, or something, then he can be cut off, because he is being unresponsive. (2) The question is hypothetical. If the question is hypothetical or suppositional, then the witness can reject the question. For example, if the question, "You told your boss that you hated your wife, isn't that right?" In this case the witness can answer, "I reject the question, the prosecutor is putting words in my mouth." or can say "I resent the implication." or "That does not accurately reflect what happened." or whatever. Any time a question "paints a picture" or establishes something hypothetical and simply asks the witness to agree with the fantasy scenario, the witness can refuse to answer, or can answer with a counter scenario which they consider to be more accurate. I would add that in case (2) where a questioner tries to paint a false scenario, it is a risky move, because it opens the door for the witness to say whatever they want. For example, imagine this exchange in the courtroom: Prosecutor: "You told your boss that you hate your wife, isn't that right?" Witness: "What actually happened is..." Prosecutor: "That is a yes or no question, answer yes or no." Witness (to judge): "Your honor, the question mischaracterizes the conversation I had with my boss, I want to explain what actually was said." Judge: "The witness may proceed with his answer." Prosecutor: "I withdraw the question." Defender: "The prosecution has opened the door, let the witness answer." Judge: "The witness will answer the question." So, now the witness has permission to answer however he likes, and the prosecutor has blundered by making a vague question that created the situation where that was possible. The main thing a witness has to do is not try to say irrelevant things or try to add information beyond what was asked for, in that case the questioner can cut them off.
You could bring a motion to compel for failing to respond substantively to a motion to admit which is objected to, just as you could for an interrogatory. The process is the same. Normally, a request to admit would not be deemed admitted if a substantive objection was filed by the deadline, even if there was no express admission or denial. Only if the objection were completely and utterly meritless would a judge be likely to order that the request to admit would be deemed admitted in that case since the response was a de facto non-answer and the objection was a mere sham. @Iñaki Viggers states in his answer: the purpose of a request for admissions is [to attempt] to stipulate --rather than to discover-- the facts on which plaintiff and defendant agree. This is not really true. A request to admit is a discovery tool to prevent you from having to prove up what should be non-controversial facts that might nonetheless take time or documentation to prove at trial and to gather evidence for in advance of trial. The questions in a request to admit are typically ones that the other side would not willingly stipulate to (for example, because they'd like to be able to offer testimony to explain a seemingly unfavorable fact) but may not be able to deny. If a party denies a request to admit and then offers nothing to support the denial in discovery practice or at trial, that party risks court sanctions for the groundless denial. Good litigation practice is also always to include some requests to admit that are effectively outcome determinative to give the opposing party a chance to screw up and essentially default the case by not responding on time.