What happens if I negatively answer the court oath regarding the truth? Bailiff: (to the witness) Please raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Witness: No. What would happen? Unfortunately, in the limited research I did, I could not find a definitive answer. Transcript adapted from here. Question inspired by this post.
That will amount to refusal to testify. The judge will warn you that, for a summoned witness, a refusal to testify means contempt of court and you will be asked that question again. After a second &quot;No&quot; you go to jail for contempt of court, and the trial will most likely be adjourned until you make up your mind to answer &quot;Yes&quot;.
Perjury is not 'not telling the truth'. It requires (in most jurisdictions) being proven to have deliberately lied under oath. As Xavier pointed out, you are not on oath when entering a plea (among other reasons, you would be required to incriminate yourself). Secondly, "I am not guilty" could mean anything from "the prosecution wrongly think that what I did is illegal" to "this law is unconstitutional" even if the facts are not in dispute; either may be mistaken without being a lie. If the facts are in dispute, the jury will have to deliver a verdict that implies (it does not state, let alone prove) that they disbelieve one party; deliberate falsehood, whether by a defendant or a police officer, would be several steps beyond that.
The parenthesized part means that if you are being compelled by law to disclose some confidential information, you must promptly notify the company of that fact. They could they respond by trying to get you excluded as a witness, or to limit your testimony, but you don't have to care what they do once they've been notified that you were subpoenaed. It may well be that every time the opposing side asks you a question, "your" side will object, and the judge will decide whether to sustain or overrule the objection. The only way in which you would defer to the company lawyer is by not answering the question before the question is finished (i.e. give the attorney 2 seconds to voice an objection). You would not have to "bring" the employer's lawyer along to a deposition, but that lawyer would probably be present and would similarly raise objections, if he felt like it. Your duty is simply to tell the company that you are being compelled to testify. In case the police or a detective agency are investigating the matter and they come to interview you, you are not compelled by law to answer (or to hand over documents), therefore you are supposed to decline to answer (and you are not obligated to inform the company that someone asked a question). As for an administrative subpoena, the perhaps tricky part will be knowing whether you are being compelled to testify, or invited to testify. The wording of the paperwork should inform you whether this is compulsory.
The general rule is that in the opening statement, the lawyer may describe what he expects the evidence and testimony to show: We will present Mr Smith, who will tell you that he saw the defendant miles away at the time of the crime But cannot make statements of fact as such. I don't see why this rule would be different for a pro se defendant. In a closing argument, as i understand the rule, the lawyer may and often will say things like "As witness X testified, there was no time to stop" but is not supposed to introduce new alleged facts not supported by the evidence. However, in a closing, a lawyer can and often does draw conclusions from facts supported by testimony. "My client was proved to have been in the next town 20 minutes earleri, so obviously he could not have committed the crime." Again, i don't see any reason why these rules would be different for someone acting pro se.
A lawyer is obligated to accurately state the law as stated in the jury instructions in closing argument (and also not to make a clear and deliberate misstatement of the facts presented at trials, and also not to express personal knowledge of the facts based upon anything other than what the jury has seen). But a certain amount of poetic license is allowed so long as the closing argument is not so misleading, as a whole, that it is likely to lead the jury astray. In this case, the prosecutor is alluding, with poetic license, to the idea that an aggressor or interloper can't assert self-defense. You can't &quot;look for trouble&quot; and then be shielded by that doctrine. A more full quote from that prosecutor makes that more clear: you lose the right to self-defence when you’re the one who brought the gun, when you’re the one creating the danger, when you’re the one provoking other people I have no opinion concerning whether his statement does or does not cross the line. I'm not sufficiently immersed in the case, and don't have enough context from having heard the closing arguments as a whole, to have a confident opinion on that point. If there is an acquittal we'll never know. If there is a conviction and appeal and this is an issue raised on appeal, we might find out. Opposing counsel has a right to object in closing argument if it goes too far, and appealing an argument that a closing argument is objectionable is challenging unless it is preserved with a timely objection at the time. Particularly if the prosecution makes a misstatement in their initial closing, rebutting it in the defense closing may be more effective than objecting. But, if the prosecutor makes a misstatement in a rebuttal period to which the defense can't offer a corrective statement, an objection may be wise in order to preserve an issue for appeal.
An oath, which is what you make when you "swear" something, is formally speaking a promise made to God upon which you expect others to rely, and is one for of statement that can give rise to a perjury conviction. An affirmation is a statement that you state is true under penalty of perjury made only to other men and women and not to God. It is preferred by those who are non-religious and by those who feel that oaths are an improper or sacrilegious act akin to taking the Lord's name in vain or idolatry. Sometimes a written statement made with an affirmation is called a declaration, while a written statement made with an oath is called an affidavit, but the actual use of those words is not terribly precise. Functionally, they are equivalent. It is also worth noting that only certain officials (e.g. notaries, court reporters and judges) have the authority to put someone under oath, while not all affirmations require a specially authorized official to administer an oath (although many affirmations are made before such an official). If a document is called a "Declaration" it is generally affirmed rather than sworn, and is generally not notarized.
united-states I am answering this in the case of a criminal jury trial (given the context of the previous question). It is my understanding that the judge must accept (almost?) all evidence admitted into court. So, this leaves me with three questions: What happens if an official shows evidence that the judge hadn't agreed to feature in the trial? . . . What happens if the evidence happens to be inadmissible? A trial in a criminal case takes place in a courtroom at a predetermined date and time, with the prosecutor physically sitting at one table in front of a judge and the defendant and the defendant's lawyer physically sitting at another table in front of the judge, and a jury physically sitting in a seating area to the side of the judge, and a witness (usually) physically sitting in a chair on the other side of the judge (in rare circumstances, for minor witnesses, testimony is provided by telephone with the phone put on speaker in the courtroom for all to hear), and a court reporter or tape recorder keeping track of what happens verbatim. In a trial, essentially all evidence comes in through witnesses sitting on a special the chair in front of the judge designated for witnesses (called the witness stand) at the request of either the prosecuting attorney, or the defense attorney. This is the only way the evidence is introduced (other than by stipulations of both side's lawyers). Prosecutors and defense attorneys don't testify or provide evidence themselves. The judge is usually not told what evidence will be offered at trial in advance, although sometimes a pre-trial hearing is held to consider a particularly important piece of evidence's admissibility prior to trial, in a hearing on what is called a &quot;motion in limine&quot; or a &quot;motion to suppress&quot;. If that happens, the judge's decision made in advance will be honored by the judge when anyone tries to introduce the evidence at trial. But those are the exception and not the rule. Usually, any witnesses can be asked any questions at trial and the judge does not consider the admissibility of the answer to the question until it is asked and objected to by the other side's lawyer at trial. A defendant can choose to be, but is not required to be, a witness in his or her own case. In a trial, when it is their turn, the prosecution and defense, respectively, ask witnesses to sit at the witness stand one by one and ask them questions, which the witness answers under oath, absent an evidence objection from the other side's attorney. While a witness is on the stand, exhibits such as documents or physical objects can also be introduced into evidence in connection with the authenticating testimony of the witness (except in cases where both sides stipulate to the admission of the documents or other non-testimonial evidence). As the lawyers try to introduce evidence by asking a question to a witness on the stand, or by asking the judge for permission to introduce non-testimonial evidence, the other side's attorney can say, &quot;I object&quot;. If that happens, the witness on the stand is not allowed to answer the question and the non-testimonial evidence (e.g. documents, or a knife allegedly used in a crime) is not made available to the jury until the judge rules on whether it is admissible or not in accordance with the rules of evidence. Usually, the judge rules on the evidence objection immediately in the moment, although in rare cases, the judge will let the jury have a break for a few minutes while hearing arguments from the lawyers for both sides on about the relevant evidence rules and/or researching the legal issue, before ruling on the evidence issue. Once the judge rules on the evidence issue, the trial continues immediately. If the judge &quot;sustains&quot; the objection to the evidence, then the question doesn't get asked and/or the jury doesn't get to see the non-testimonial evidence. The lawyer whose question or offer to introduce evidence was successfully objected to moves on to their next question (if any) for the witness instead. If the judge &quot;overrules&quot; the objection to the evidence, then the witness answer the question and/or the jury gets to see the non-testimonial evidence which is &quot;received&quot; into evidence by the judge. This process continues continuously, for as many business days as it takes, until all witness testimony and all non-testimonial evidence has been presented to the court and both sides have told the court that they have presented all of their evidence. Then each side makes closing arguments to the jury, the judge reads the jury instructions of law on how to resolve the case, and the jury is sent to closed room to discuss the case and decide whether to say &quot;guilty&quot; or &quot;not guilty&quot; with respect to each charge brought by the prosecution in the trial. This decision is called a &quot;verdict&quot; and when the jury has made up its mind on all charges present to it, the jury lets the judge know that it has made up its mind, and the judge calls everyone back to the courtroom, and the jury tells the judge what they decided in open court. If the verdict is &quot;not guilty&quot; on all criminal charges in the case, then the case is over, with no post-trial motions and no appeals. If the verdict is &quot;guilty&quot; the defendant is convicted, subject to post-trial motions to declare a mistrial and appeals by the convicted defendant. If the convicted defendant appeals the case, and the judge abused his discretion in overruling an objection to the evidence that is made by the lawyer for the defendant (or the defendant personally if the defendant is not represented by a lawyer), because no reasonable judge could have found that the evidence was admissible under the circumstances, then the appellate court rules that the judge has made an &quot;error&quot;. The appellate court will not find that the judge's ruling is an &quot;error&quot; if the judge made the correct decision for the wrong reason. If it is reasonably possible that &quot;error&quot; possibly in combination with other errors made by the trial court judge could have caused a convicted criminal defendant to have been acquitted by the jury if the errors weren't made by the judge, then the defendant gets a new trial. The new trial usually before the same judge with a new jury. But the new trial is before a different judge and a new jury if the judge is no longer a judge on the court for any reason, or if the judge has been so defiant of the appellate court (typically ignoring its instructions in a retrial after a first appeal) that the appellate court decides it must remove the judge from the case. A criminal defendant is only acquitted by an appellate court if the appellate court finds that it would be impossible under any circumstances for the defendant to be convicted in a new trial, possibly with different evidence presented by the prosecution. What happens if a private citizen does the above? This doesn't make sense. Private citizens don't rule on the admissibility of evidence in a criminal trial, and can't introduce evidence in a criminal trial except at the request of a prosecuting attorney or defendant's attorney by being called as a witness and asking the questions that the lawyers (and sometimes the judge as well) asks the witness. Witnesses are not allowed to volunteer testimony or provide documents to a jury unless asked to do so by a lawyer in the case. What happens if someone provides evidence in court without the knowledge of the judge? As the process described above should make clear, this is basically impossible absent some extremely irregular event on the same level of irregularity as someone bribing a jury or threatening a jury with harm if he votes the wrong way.
Only if counsel challenged the point during the trial Difficult as it might be, you can’t allow the judge to be wrong during the trial without calling them on it: very, very politely. For example, there is case law that says you can’t successfully appeal because the judge was asleep through significant parts of the trial; appeals courts are clear that you have to wake them up. If you don’t then you accepted that you didn’t want the judge to hear the parts of the case they slept through, it’s your choice how you present your case. Frankly some cases are better if the judge misses half the evidence. Of course, if the error of law makes it through to the oral or written judgement then you can appeal even if you didn’t take issue with it.