Expert Witness Read Online Free Page A

me. I’ll look at that bloke in the witness box instead. Blimey, glad I’m not him; he looks gutted. I’ll try looking serious to show I wouldn’t laugh at some thing like someone shooting themselves. Fancy an expert saying that and laughing. Not very professional. What did he say just then? I missed that last bit …
    An expert should keep their personality in check in the witness box, no matter what the question. Some times, though, it’s very hard to resist the temptation to say some thing smart. You have to remember that particularly in serious cases such as murder, the court proceedings are being transcribed into what is called the trial transcript (or a similar name, depending on the country). It’s therefore not good enough to point to some thing and say, the sample came from there. The transcript must reflect what actually happened so that anyone can come back to it, possibly years later, follow what was happening and what was being discussed at any given point without having had to be present. Instead of saying, the sample came from there, it has to be described in terms such as, in photo graph 123, the sample was taken from the area shown in the top right hand corner, which was approximately five centimetres from the left hand edge of the blanket.
    I gave evidence in a case once where I was holding a photograph of a piece of carpet. The barrister said to me: ‘Could you just describe what we see in the photo graph marked, Piece of carpet. What is that a photo graph of?’
    It sounds like a ridiculous question because the court has just been told I took a photo graph of a piece of carpet, they’ve been shown the piece of carpet (I’m holding it), here’s the photo graph of the piece of carpet that has been referred to as Piece of carpet and now I’m being asked to say what the photo’s about.
    So I said, ‘A piece of carpet.’ I knew I shouldn’t just leave it at that because it sounded cheeky, so I left it a beat and carried on, but even though I wasn’t looking at the jury, I could see a few grins out of the corner of my eye.
    It’s not just me, though. There are other examples, includingthis one, where an expert was giving evidence in relation to a drug case.
    Lawyer: What makes you say that the heroin was not a product of England?
    Witness: Climate would make it difficult.
    I even heard a lawyer ask a witness, ‘So, how old is your 16-year-old daughter?’ The witness’s face was a picture — she clearly thought the lawyer had lost the plot. This was, of course, a result of the lawyer following one of the basic rules of questioning witnesses during a trial: never ask a question to which you do not know the answer. He knew the answer but unfortunately it just so happened to come out of his mouth in the form of a ridiculous question.
    Trials are very well organised events. Particularly at the level of serious criminal charges, they are meticulously planned by both sides, prosecution and defence (civil cases are often even more complicated). The lawyer is often asking one thing but their mind has already skipped ahead five minutes in time so their mouth can be on automatic and they don’t always hear the bloopers. An example:
    Lawyer: What is the nature of the injury to your client’s left shoulder?
    Witness: The injury is to his left elbow.
    Had the lawyer asking the question been listening to the answer, he would have realised his mistake. Unfortunately, his brain had skipped forward and he hadn’t heard the answerand didn’t register the amused response to his question or the bemused response when he didn’t notice what was happening.
    Some times, people don’t realise that what’s in their witness statement is total cobblers. In drink-driving cases people are so desperate to keep hold of their driving licences they’ll say anything. If they even looked at what they were saying, they might