What does a judge do if there was a leading question? What does a judge do is there is a leading question asked by one party towards a witness during direct examination, and the other party doesn’t object to it? I’m writing a paper on the procedure of court rooms, and I can’t seem to find an awnser to this question.
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."
A witness who disobeys a court order has automatically broken the law. Indeed, this is the most fundamental of laws; you can't decide "If I turn up to the hearing I may be punished for my crime; but not attending isn't against the law, so goodbye." A witness who goes out of the jurisdiction cannot, of course, be punished while there (though when he returns he may have to explain why he chose to leave having been warned that he must attend or face penalties- that is the meaning of sub poena). But your assumption that anybody who fails to attend probably had a good reason betrays a fundamental, though common, misunderstanding. A court has determined that your evidence is necessary for justice to be done. There is therefore no good reason not to attend. It may well be that a doctor would prefer that you did not go to court that day, and if you apply to the court it may be possible to find some arrangement. But you are not allowed to decide 'my convenience is more important than discovering whether the defendant should go to jail or not". Civilised countries have people who are empowered to make that decision; they are called judges, and the decision has been made.
It is the lower courts' interpretation of a senior court's judgment&mdash;specifically the ratio&mdash;that determines what is the precedent. If a court doesn't want its opinion to bind lower courts, it can be clear in its judgment that this is not what was intended. For example, a court could say that this judgment turns on the particular facts of this case, and should be interpreted narrowly by lower courts. Alternatively, a previous precedent could be narrowed by a later judgment of a senior court if it was later felt that the ratio was being applied too widely. (I have read examples of the explicitly narrow ratio, but haven't been able to find any today)
Generally they don't. If the conversation was made while there was a third person present, the person can be a witness at trial. Unless the witness is impeached, the witness's statement may be sufficient for you to meet your burden of proof to show the statement was made, because the burden is just a preponderance of evidence in most civil cases. Note that, the existence of a statement is not sufficient to prove breach of privacy. The context surrounding the statement is important. If you intend to record communications from the landlord in the future, please check with your jurisdiction's laws regarding recording of communications. Many jurisdictions (such as California) only permit a private communication to be recorded when all parties give consent. Not only an illegally recorded conversation is inadmissible as evidence (with the exception to rebut a witness), it is also a crime to do so. Some other jurisdictions in USA allows one party to record the conversation without obtaining consent from the other party.
To add to user6726's answer: In general, you can only collect a judgement if there are assets or income available to be collected (i.e., owned by the debtor, and not protected from collection, such as personal items or part of the wages). If you suspect the debtor has assets you do not know about, you can formally ask the debtor to declare their assets. In Nevada (and in many other US states), this is called an Examination of Judgment Debtor (or just Debtor's examination). The basic idea is: You ask the court to order a debtor's examination. The court (after checking your judgement) orders a hearing where the debtor must appear (or they may be imprisoned for contempt of court). In the hearing, you can ask the debtor about their assets, and they must answer truthfully (usually under oath). Details vary, as usual. See for example this page from the Las Vegas Justice Court: Examination of a Judgment Debtor. As a practical note: The whole process, as usual, means additional work and possibly legal cost for the creditor - so it only makes sense if there is a realistic possibility of finding previously unknown assets. As usual, this is a decision the creditor must make.
How exactly would the court determine this to be the cause of divorce? 99.99% of the time, this would be purely a &quot;he said she said&quot; situation, for how can someone prove refusal to engage? You can prove the opposite if there are children born to both parents, but how can one prove a negative? Or is the statement by the divorce initiator considered sufficient for the judge? Testimony under oath is evidence. Judges resolve &quot;he said she said&quot; situations every day on a routine basis with witness testimony alone by judging the credibility of each witness before them. See also an answer by @Jen about the subject of how things are proved in court in general. In the appropriate case, testimony under oath with no other corroborating evidence can even support a murder conviction as proof beyond a reasonable doubt. It can certainly suffice to prove marital fault in a civil lawsuit for a divorce. If the judge finds that witness testimony under oath between more than one witness is irreconcilably different, and each witness is equally credible, and that it is impossible to tell which person is telling the truth, then the person seeking relief from the court has failed to meet their burden of proof to obtain relief from the court. But, this is rare. Usually, when witnesses are both testifying under oath and disagree about what happened, the judge will find that one witness is more credible than the other. And, in truth, while people certainly do lie in open court under oath, and probably are more likely to lie in that situation than when speaking to someone not under oath outside of a courtroom, most of the time, people don't lie and the testimony of all of the witnesses are consistent with each other subject to limitations based upon what they could perceive from their perspective and the limitations of imperfect memories. This could come down to demeanor in court, hesitation in answering, &quot;tells&quot;, inconsistencies in their testimony, corroboration from other evidence and other witnesses (e.g. what someone said to a friend or wrote in a diary at the time), evidence that a witness has been convicted of a crime of deceit in the past, use of language that suggests coaching about their testimony, or common sense judgments about whose story seems more plausible under the circumstances of the parties in front of the judge.
It isn't that uncommon to do something similar to this, which is called a &quot;test case&quot;. One of the more familiar examples of this kind of litigation conduct is the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. There have been test cases, for example, that involved important questions of E.U. jurisdiction in civil law countries as well.
&quot;Why&quot; someone did something is potentially off-topic, but in regards to your hierarchical image - it lacks provenance so cannot be tested, however according to the official judiciary website: The Master of the Rolls is second in judicial importance to the Lord Chief Justice.