loaded questions in pseudo-legal scenario How is a loaded question dealt with in a legal, or legalistic, context? Is there particular language which is typically employed, or is there a strategy which is particularly effective? The specific example would be of the form "when did you stop beating your wife?" The challenge being to prove a negative. Aside from asserting the negation as fact, how is the false premise embedded in the accusation best disputed?
The first step is to be able to identify the presupposition, which is a claim that must be assumed to be true for the question to make sense. For instance, "Is the present king of France bald?" assumes that there is a present king of France, and that in fact is false. Such a blatant example is hard to miss (if you speak English), but a less obvious presupposition can be found in the question "When did you arrive at your subjective conclusion about the accused". Regardless of the time, answering the question accepts that the conclusion is subjective (not a god thing for an expert witness to be saying). If you want to study linguistic semantics, there are a number of ways to identify presuppositions: to keep it on topic for LSE, I'll just summarize it by saying you have to acquire the analytic skills for identifying presuppositions. The technical tests are probably not useful to a panicked witness being cross-examined. The Wiki on presupposition might be useful, for example pay attention to the negation test ("My car exploded" and "My car didn't explode" both presuppose that I have a car). If you can identify the presupposition, you can simply answer "I have never beat my wife", or "My conclusion was based on objective scientific tests", and ignore the literal question that was asked. They can still rephrase and ask an unloaded version of the question. If you are forced to limit responses to yes and no, you may need to address the judge to explain why you can't just say "yes" or "no", or blurt out the explanation before you are instructed to stop talking (the judge would probably allow the explanation if it's obvious that you're addressing a presupposition problem).
There’s some truth in it When a matter, particularly a criminal matter, is before a court or sub judice, public comment is forbidden and may be contempt of court unless they are “a fair and accurate report of legal proceedings held in public, published contemporaneously and in good faith.” Technically, it only applies to media reporting (probably including social media) and only while the proceedings are active. Proceedings become active when there is an arrest, oral charge, issue of a warrant, or a summons. Notwithstanding, there is nothing preventing an organisation having a “no comment” policy on any matter once there is police involvement.
Contempt of court is when you refuse to do what the court (judge) orders you to do. Actually, you have been instructed by the judge to answer questions truthfully, so if asked, you are supposed to state your beliefs. Volunteering an unwillingness to apply the law as instructed is always an option, and will get you excused from that jury for cause.
Yes Quite a large chunk of the legal system deals with those general concepts. 27 - pretty much all contract law deals with when and how you must discharge your obligations 28 - ditto, although if it’s not owed until tomorrow … 29 - there are laws against criminal conspiracy 30 - making false accusations can be a crime and can give rise to defamation
If a law is struck-down as unconstitutional, but all the precedent used to find it unconstitutional gets reversed; what becomes of the law? In U.S. law, the law has effect again, unless it has been amended or repealed in the meantime. Is it totally dead, needing be passed anew? In the U.S., no. It is not totally dead. It is merely dormant. It stays on the books and legislators may decide not to repeal it as a political statement. It also might be considered for interpretive purposes when construing another part of the same law. For example, the meaning given to a phrase in an unconstitutional part of the law might be applied to a different part of the law that is constitutional. Can the judiciary be asked to reinstated, after which point it can be used again? In the U.S., any court can determine that a law is unconstitutional, but the extent to which that ruling is binding precedent on other courts or other parties than those to the case before it depends upon the court in question and upon the doctrine of collateral estoppel (a.k.a. issue preclusion). For example, the legal fight in the U.S. to hold bans on same sex marriage to be unconstitutional was fought in and resulted in ruling in dozens of courts at the trial court and state appellate court, and federal intermediate appellate court level before a uniform ruling was established by the U.S. Supreme Court. Further, even if the issue arises in another case where there is a controlling precedent, attorney ethics permit an attorney to make a good faith argument for a change in the law to any court, so if there is some good faith argument for doing so, the attorney can push that the issue be reconsidered. Of course, usually the answer from the court will be "no." Or can it just be enforced again without any formal process; so long as nobody sues and gets it killed again by a lower court? Sometimes government officials enforce laws that have been held unconstitutional, either because they aren't aware of the relevant court decisions, or because they think that their facts are distinguishable from those under which the law was held unconstitutional (which sometimes happens on an "as applied" basis rather than on a "facial" basis that applies to all cases), or because they think the judge before them might rule differently despite the precedent. Also, would the answer differ according to country? If so, could you please give me some examples of countries handling this differently. Yes. Many countries with legal systems based upon the legal system of countries of continental Europe like France and Germany and Spain, which are called "civil law" countries have a very different process of handling unconstitutional laws, as does the European Court of Human Rights and the highest court of the European Union. In Germany, for example, questions of the constitutionality of a law may be raised only in the Constitutional Court and not in other courts. This ruling is usually final. And, unlike U.S. courts, the Constitutional Court can rule a law unconstitutional during the legislative process, rather than in connection with an actual case or controversy relating to the law taking effect (in which case the law never gets on the books in the first place). I don't know what happens when the Constitutional Court declares a law unconstitutional. I do know, however, that in the case of the European Court of Human Rights and the highest courts of the E.U. that one of the usual remedies will be an order directed at a member state to amend its statutes to remove the offending law, with sanctions imposed if the member state fails to do so. Obviously, once such a law is repealed in this fashion, it would have to be re-enacted to take effect even if the precedent holding that the law was unconstitutional was undermined.
Yes The case you want to know about is Cohen v. California: A young man was arrested for wearing a jacket with the words &quot;Fuck the Draft&quot; and SCOTUS decided, that that was First Amendment-protected speech and the arrest illegal. The phrase מנא מנא תקל ופרסין is in Akkadian or Aramaic language but Hebrew script (as opposed to the Akkadian Cuneiform) and can be transcribed as Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin. It is also known in German as &quot;Menetekel&quot; or in English as the &quot;Writing on the wall&quot;. It stems from the biblical episode of Belshazzar's feast. Literally, the text would be read as &quot;counted, counted, weighed, distributed&quot;. Its meaning elaborated in Daniel 5 is generally understood as &quot;Your days are numbered; Your days are numbered; You have been measured and found wanting; Your kingdom will fall and be divided&quot;. While stemming from religious texts, in the depicted situation it is more likely meant as political speech, and in that fashion indistinguishable from a flag. It also does not call for imminent lawless action - the so-called Brandenburg Test after Brandenburg v Ohio - and thus remains in the protected speech area. Remember, that even preaching genocide can be First amendment protected, as long as that line of imminent lawless action is not overstepped. As this phrase does neither, it is protected speech.
First, the relevant term is "precedent". You have misstated the nature of "precedent". Precedent is simply the addition of further information about what the law is. A legislature may set forth a law that say "If A, then (if you B, you will suffer consequence C)". But it is not self-evident in a given instance whether A is true, or B is true, or what exactly C refers to. In addition, law is an integrated system, so Law #39 may seem to contradict Law #12: does that mean that Law #39 doesn't apply, or is it that Law #12 (if #12 is a Constitutional provision, #39 is just wrong – laws exist in a hierarchy). Therefore, laws must be interpreted. "Precedent" refers to the creation of a rule of interpretation, one which is logically consistent with existing rules of interpretation (which are arranged in some logical hierarchy). If the Supreme Court establishes a rule that laws penalizing "hate speech" contradict the First Amendment (R.A.V v. St Paul) and therefore cannot be a law in the US, then any similar law is, by rule, also not actually a law. Creation of precedent itself follows rules, though ones that are harder to discern – this is what "jurisprudence" is about. For example, some justices believe that they should appeal to an inherent feeling of justice; others believe that a law should be interpreted according to perceived legislative intent; still others focus on the wording of the legal text (statute, usually). This does not involve appeal to popular sentiment. It does mean (usually) that law is seen to be a system of rules, and not case-by-case feelings.
When it can be “reasonably read both to impart a defamatory inference and to affirmatively suggest that the author intended or endorsed that inference.” Which is the standard the New York appeals court endorsed in 2014 for “defamation by implication”. So, on the face of the statements, they have to imply fraud and they have to show that the speaker intended to imply fraud. Whether they did that is up to the jury.