[HN Gopher] Dealing with the Evasive Witness
___________________________________________________________________
Dealing with the Evasive Witness
Author : wholeness
Score : 132 points
Date : 2021-11-05 19:36 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lawyerminds.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lawyerminds.com)
| [deleted]
| Lifelarper wrote:
| > lawyer
|
| > My friend we....
|
| > lawyer
|
| The police and justice system are never your friend irrespective
| of innocence, anyone with enough money and no infamy can just
| walk away, get a lawyer always, the justice system is irrevocably
| broken, don't fight that.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| I'm not sure what your comment has to do with the article,
| which is about depositions in a civil suit.
| cosmojg wrote:
| All I see is a spinning three-quarter circle.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Unfortunately, the probability exists that a witness may answer
| these questions with something other than an unqualified "yes".
| The hedging, evasive answer avoids the truth ..."
|
| Hmm, avoids the truth, or avoids the answer you wanted?
|
| "The witness who "doesn't remember" or "isn't sure" about dates,
| times, distances, or amounts."
|
| Witnesses are notoriously unreliable. It's possible these are
| valid, truthful answers.
| jedimastert wrote:
| Remember that this is geared towards representatives of a
| corporation, not persons representing themselves. These kinds
| of answers are almost certainly in a record somewhere.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I don't see how this changes much. It's very possible they
| don't have those details recorded, or if they do they still
| don't _remember_ them. Then they are just reading off of the
| notes. The credibly that is often given to notes is alarming.
| Sure, dated notes in combination with memory is good. But if
| there is no memory to go with them and no validation process,
| then it 's possible there was a mistake in the notes, yet
| they treat them as truth.
| ghaff wrote:
| More times than I care to admit, I'll have some cryptic
| comment or action item in my calendar notes and I have to
| go back to the person I was talking with and ask: "What the
| hell does this mean?"
| ghaff wrote:
| A record someplace _maybe_. A record that I have? Often not.
|
| Ask me when I first discussed $TOPIC with someone or when I
| was briefed about $TOPIC or when I talked to a reporter about
| $TOPIC, I _may_ have a date-stamped note, scrawl in my paper
| calendar, or an entry in an electronic calendar (assuming I
| 'm still with the same company). But I may also have a vague
| recollection which no amount of prodding is going to
| crystallize or just no memory at all.
| whatshisface wrote:
| This is written for a lawyer who's on a side, not a curious
| investigator that's trying to maximize their own knowledge of
| the truth.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Exactly. The lawyer/author is presenting themselves in the
| light of seeking the truth. Maybe they actually believe it
| themself, but it's not a unbiased view.
|
| "... a curious investigator that's trying to maximize their
| own knowledge of the truth."
|
| Do we actually have anything like this in the 'justice'
| system? Lawyers are on sides. Police only investigate to
| prove guilt, not innocence (most of the time). Judges are
| basically referees. Juries don't get to investigate, only
| view what the court allows them to (and society in general
| has a bias against defendants). In my experience, nobody is
| interested in the truth.
| hash872 wrote:
| A number of other developed countries have judges who serve
| a more inquisitorial role, they're not just neutral
| referees in the process. Up to you if you think that's
| better, I'm pretty skeptical of the power of the state so I
| really don't
| giantg2 wrote:
| It would be nice if juries could ask more questions.
| Generally they are very limited in the ability to ask
| questions and the scope of the question.
|
| Even in the more inquisitive role, they aren't actually
| investigating anything - like finding new info or
| evidence.
| jancsika wrote:
| > Do we actually have anything like this in the 'justice'
| system?
|
| Aren't there things like children's advocates in family
| court? Review boards at every level who check up on
| accusations against lawyers/judges/etc.?
|
| I'd venture to guess there are dozens of such entities
| sprinkled throughout the legal system.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I don't know that children advocates are really seeking
| justice. They are seeking the best outcome for the kids.
| They also don't do any real investigating or truth
| seeking.
|
| "Review boards at every level who check up on accusations
| against lawyers/judges/etc.?"
|
| Do they? Do they actually do anything? I have experiences
| with these and they were mind blowing if you come in
| thinking they're about justice. Don't forget, they keep
| these secret because they want to protect the system,
| even if it means sending an innocent person to prison (no
| requirement to turn over exculpatory evidence even if
| subpoenaed). The Bar won't even investigate misconduct by
| prosecutors unless the court has already declared that
| misconduct occurred.
|
| I would really love to hear about one of the dozen or so
| boards or whatever that could help me right some past
| wrongs. Because I've gotten nowhere.
| vladf wrote:
| How would such a thing like this exist in practice? Who
| would watch this watchman?
|
| When your goal is to "discover truth" as Chief Truth
| Discoverer of the DOJ the only way to audit you is with
| grander truth discoery.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I agree, if we are only talking about some official
| position/office.
|
| You could use things like transparency and metrics
| released to the public. Right now complaints against the
| judiciary and many other positions in the system are
| considered so secret that they wont even release them if
| the contain exculpatory evidence. The reasoning is that
| the secrecy is necessary to preserve public trust of the
| system, and the system itself is more important than any
| individual's rights or justice. We could evaluate the
| complaints, wrongful convictions, etc to create better
| procedures and policies to find the truth.
| elicash wrote:
| I kinda wonder the opposite -- is this "adversarial"
| approach towards finding the truth, where you've got people
| assigned to make the best case for different arguments
| regardless of your personal feelings about it,
| underutilized in other arenas?
| giantg2 wrote:
| It depends. Maybe I misunderstood you, but you seem to be
| implying that I am against the adversarial system. I am
| not.
|
| The adversarial system is supposed to produce the truth
| in a fair fight. In my opinion, the system does not allow
| for a fair fight. Usually the party with the most money
| can win. There is a lot bias that exists as well. The
| people in the system continue to grant themselves more
| privileges that those not part of the system.
|
| The system even situates itself to where it costs more to
| defend ones innocence than to just plead and pay a fine.
| One cannot say that our system provides truth or justice
| when it allows this to occur.
| elicash wrote:
| Not implying anything about you.
|
| I used your comment as a jumping-off point for what I
| thought was an interesting question about whether this
| adversarial approach should be extended to other areas.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Ok. I saw the "opposite" part, but didn't see anything
| that directly argued the opposite of what your comment
| was saying.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| > Much wisdom often goes with fewer words." -Sophocles
|
| I love that this quote sits in the middle of the first section of
| this lengthy article. The section that says to specifically use
| more questions rather than fewer (some of the questions are for
| some reason phrased as statements). The section that is followed
| by an intro that basically defined what an uncooperative witness
| is at least three times but in more or less the same words. The
| irony is so strong I don't think I need to take my supplements
| today.
| rectang wrote:
| > _The advantage of the "one fact - one question" technique is
| that when a witness "runs", i.e. they try a long non-responsive
| narrative; the question can be repeated easily again and again._
|
| "Colonel Jessup, did you order the code red?"
| stickfigure wrote:
| _Would you agree that one of the standards of safe product design
| is that the risk of severe injury or death is always
| unreasonable, and always unacceptable, if it could be prevented
| or minimized by reasonable safety measures?_
|
| That word _reasonable_ is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting
| here. Reasonable to whom? Seems like it makes the question almost
| meaningless.
| kixiQu wrote:
| I think this is a fundamental difficulty of depositions:
| "reasonable" has a really clear and precise legal meaning that
| does answer "to whom" it must be reasonable, but if I, a non-
| lawyer, don't know that legal meaning, I am _terrified_ of the
| consequences of getting it wrong.
| antognini wrote:
| The word "reasonable" does a lot of heavy lifting in the
| American legal system in general. There is even a meme (sorry
| for the low quality):
| https://m.facebook.com/comedianoflaw/photos/a.20394137529581...
| jacquesm wrote:
| Lawyers don't give a hoot about the truth, they care about
| billable minutes and winning their cases, and if that requires
| bending, twisting or breaking the truth then so be it. If lawyers
| cared about the truth then there wouldn't be any lawsuits, just
| mediation and settlements out of court.
| rectang wrote:
| That's the nature of the adversarial system, and the argument
| (which I agree with) is that it's better to to avoid the idea
| that there is only one "truth", or at least to defer winnowing
| down what constitutes "truth" until _after_ all sides have made
| the case for their own "truth".
| jacquesm wrote:
| I've seen enough lawsuits up close to know for a fact that
| the truth _rarely_ comes out during a lawsuit. What does
| happen is that (1) either party 's lawyer has incomplete
| understanding of the case, (2) either party runs out of money
| before the case concludes, (3) either party folds because the
| other party can afford to endlessly extend the case and (4)
| either party settles because the cost of the lawsuit exceeds
| the settlement. I've seen cases won that should have been
| lost and vice-versa if it depended on the truth.
|
| When you go to court it's _alway_ a crap-shoot, no matter how
| sure you are of your case going in. This is something people
| with iron clad faith in the legal system should realize.
| Courts are at best an amplifier of who has the most money to
| throw at a particular lawsuit, unless both parties are
| equally matched _and_ are willing to take it all the way to
| the highest court the courts are not a fair and level playing
| field. Rather the opposite.
| rectang wrote:
| /me _nodding vigorously in agreement_
|
| The question in my mind is what a system would look like
| where lawyers were legally bound to serve "truth" in some
| way above and beyond their current ethical obligations. The
| question immediately arises, who is the arbiter of that
| "truth"?
|
| What got me on this question was this passage from the
| root:
|
| > _If lawyers cared about the truth then there wouldn 't be
| any lawsuits, just mediation and settlements out of court._
|
| But court system rot doesn't begin from the personal moral
| failings of individual lawyers (except insofar as they
| choose to participate). The _litigants_ -- primarily
| powerful commercial entities -- create an inexorable demand
| for an unlevel playing field.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Agree that the litigants are a huge part of the problem,
| but an ethical lawyer would refuse to take an un-ethical
| case. But the reverse happens, un-ethical laywers goad
| their customers into suing because they can win the wrong
| case just as easily as they could lose a right one. For
| them it's always a plus.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Is it illegal for a witness to withhold knowledge? I.e., saying
| "I don't remember" in regards to facts that they somehow can be
| proven to know?
| GavinMcG wrote:
| In general, in this setting, yes. The English (and thereby
| American) legal traditions assume a right "to every man's
| evidence" and depositions are taken under oath.
|
| An actual perjury charge is extremely unlikely, but the judge
| the case is assigned to could hold a witness in contempt for
| persistently refusing to play ball. In reality, though, what
| the deposing side needs is to know what facts the witness will
| testify to, or alternatively, to be able to show that the
| witness can't be trusted. So if they can prove that the witness
| lied, it's likely sufficient for their purposes to just show
| that at trial and thereby discredit the witness.
| leetcrew wrote:
| how can you prove that someone knows something? if you could,
| presumably you wouldn't need to question them about that thing.
| i_like_waiting wrote:
| by other questions that imply that very simplified example:
| have you drove your car from pub? don't remember were you in
| a morning at 6 Random street? Yes 5 mins later... Did you
| took a taxi? No sir, I came by car Can anybody confirm that
| for you? No, I was driving alone
|
| It would be probably more elaborate questions, but you get
| the idea
| toyg wrote:
| It's not an absolute principle. It obviously depends on the
| country, but also on the type of trial (civil, criminal...),
| down to the particular type of issue being considered and the
| position of the witness in the dynamic.
| hashimotonomora wrote:
| Evasive witness or very effective tactic during cross, depending
| on who you are.
| pkilgore wrote:
| I would just like to remind folks that depositions are a hostile
| form of communication. As many other lawyers can tell you,
| choosing to adopt these techniques with friends and loved ones
| will generally be perceived quite poorly. And without an actual
| judge to force both parties to be there and a fact finder and
| standard to apply, everyone involved will lose.
|
| That said, this was really excellent and concise advice. I hope
| it might be obvious how much preparation time this takes, which
| is just one of the many reasons litigation is so incredibly
| expensive on non-corporate financial scales.
| hashimotonomora wrote:
| It depends on your goal. Depositions are not taken with a
| judge. It's great as a method for asking specific, exhaustive,
| exploratory questions and not letting the "witness" word
| herself out without at least making it obvious to you. I've
| used it a lot with sneaky suppliers and in general as a method
| to find truth. With friends a loved ones you should make it
| much softer and know when to stop. But the underlying
| conceptual framework is the same.
| [deleted]
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Interrogating family and friends in these way is inherently
| hostile because the goal here is to catch people lying. By
| doing this, you're telling the other person you don't trust
| them.
|
| As someone on the receiving end of this, it destroyed any
| trust I had with my parents and teachers. The problem was
| that I wasn't lying, but that I couldn't tell a story in a
| coherent and linear order on the first attempt.
| [deleted]
| xyzelement wrote:
| Some of this advice is simply how to structure a
| conversation that helps the other person communicate what
| they know. If doesn't need to be hostile.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| The article does not tell you how to use these techniques
| in a non-hostile way.
|
| You need to have good social skills to even pull that
| off... in that case, why do you need them?
| xyzelement wrote:
| Like I said, it doesn't have to be hostile. For example,
| the one fact one question pattern is useful when someone
| is throwing a messy ball of information at you. They may
| not be doing it to be intentionally evasive, but it's
| simply ineffective for helping you understand what they
| know, so you need to help them along.
|
| People can "end up" unintentionally evasive(aka
| confusing) and having a structure and strategy for
| keeping them on track is key.
| ysleepy wrote:
| These techniques only really make sense if you want to
| make someone say something specific you already know, I
| strongly assume they even prevent actually finding out
| what someone really is thinking about or means.
| xyzelement wrote:
| > These techniques only really make sense if you want to
| make someone say something specific you already know
|
| I mean, yes if you take it very literally - but why limit
| yourself? Here's an example of using the "one question
| one fact" technique for a non-hostile "interrogation"
| that's almost verbatim from last week:
|
| Colleague (super irate): everyone who works here is a
| fucking incompetent idiot! We need to fire half our team!
|
| Me: Was there a production problem last night?
|
| Colleague: Yes
|
| Me: did we roll out some bad logic?
|
| Colleague: Yes
|
| Me: Was the logic obviously bad?
|
| Colleague: Yes!!!!
|
| Me: was there a code review that missed it?
|
| Colleague: Yeah
|
| Me: who reviewed it?
|
| Colleague: Bob.
|
| Me: wasn't Bob the reviewer the last time something
| obvious broke?
|
| Colleague: Yeah...
|
| Me: we should help Bob become a stronger reviewer.
|
| Colleague: Agreed!
|
| Did I interrogate my colleague? Sort of. Was it hostile?
| Not at all. Did the one fact one question form help him
| get from "we should fire half the team" to "we need to
| help Bob"? Yup. Was that a vital recognition to make
| things better? Yup. Could we have gotten there so quickly
| if I didn't intentionally structure the conversation?
| Probably not.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Here's what I'm seeing, a coworker makes a statement out
| of frustration and your decision is to "correct" them.
| This escalates things because your trying to hammer your
| point of view through.
|
| You're addressing the wrong problem. They are frustrated
| at the situation, not suggesting a course of action.
| Acknowledge their feelings (because you probably have the
| same frustration). Then you can work the conversation
| around on how to fix the problem. Maybe they see
| something you don't. But you'll never know that with your
| example.
| xyzelement wrote:
| > Here's what I'm seeing, a coworker makes a statement
| out of frustration and your decision is to "correct"
| them.
|
| I get the "make sure they are OK" angle - totally the go-
| to if someone is seriously distraught or vulnerable.
|
| This was a manager annoyed from perceiving themselves
| drowning in a sea of incompetence. Helping him go from
| that to "this is something I can help my team with" was
| empowering to him as is obvious in the actual example.
|
| You really can't imagine a situation where simply helping
| someone navigate their own understanding is helpful?
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Thank you for checking out my website. I'm quite proud of
| it. :)
|
| While I am an advocate for mental health now, I've been
| doing everything I talked about for the last decade.
| Maybe two if you include what I picked up from my parents
| doing marriage counseling.
|
| > You really can't imagine a situation where simply
| helping someone navigate their own understanding is
| helpful?
|
| Here's my way to address that:
|
| "Yeah. That last deployment was rough. I'm sick and tired
| of this happening too. What we are doing isn't effective.
| I've been thinking about this and I have a few ideas.
| When would be a good time to discuss? I'm free now or we
| could talk after lunch."
|
| Now I can have a conversation with someone willing to
| look at solutions instead of venting.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The coworker is a professional and the manager isn't a
| psychotherapist.
|
| The point is to take the word soup and turn it into an
| action. As a manager or someone investigating a problem,
| your goal is to resolve the issue. Reinforcing the state
| of emotional whatever is a barrier to that goal.
|
| People tend to segment their thinking based on their
| role. Validation of "everyone is stupid, except me"
| doesn't put you on a good path.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Acknowledging someone feels legitimate frustration or
| anger at something that needs to be fixed is not the same
| as validating what they said.
|
| Depending on your relationship with the person, you can
| defuse things any number of ways. The goal is to switch
| them from thinking emotionally to thinking logically.
| Humor works well.
|
| I've said something like this in the past: "Hold up,
| let's see if we can fix this before we start executing
| volunteers. The paperwork just isn't worth it."
| rackjack wrote:
| Yeah... deposition seems to be for constructing an
| argument or proving a position. If you don't have a
| position to prove, I think it's better to work through
| the emotions and issues a colleague is facing so work can
| be done more smoothly, since they probably know something
| you don't.
| cuf7i3vtcu wrote:
| You could also have just let your colleague vent and
| gotten the same basic result unless your colleague is the
| one in charge of hiring/firing. Personally, you sound
| tedious to talk with.
| ljm wrote:
| This kind of works okay when the other person is agreeing
| to being coached, but sometimes you want to express
| something without it being something to be immediately
| fixed. Because it sounds like you're not hearing the
| frustration, and skipping a few steps ahead.
|
| It's great when someone wants it, but do it often enough
| or by default and people will start cutting you out of
| the loop. Because it's genuinely _exhausting_.
|
| I've been on both sides of this, especially when I did
| coaching training and then thought I could use it for
| everyone.
| xyzelement wrote:
| >> This kind of works okay when the other person is
| agreeing to being coached
|
| This is a great point and totally agree. It's a little
| frustrating to have to spell out the entire context of
| the relationship in this case but people are for some
| reason eager to assume a context that puts the
| conversation in the worst possible light rather than
| seeing "oh yeah ok _sometimes_ there 's room for that
| kind of thing" and obviously you wield the tool with
| judgement.
|
| One thing I really do appreciate is that some workplaces
| seem more geared for coaching and feedback than others. I
| haven't worked at Amazon for example but I understand
| that one of the reasons it's considered a hard place to
| work is that it's "not OK" to not want to improve and
| grow, so you give implicit consent to be coached by
| working there (obviously there's still room for empathy
| and handing it well) whereas other organizations (Google)
| seem to prioritize in-the-moment happiness so there's
| potential to be missing out on vital feedback for years -
| I actually asked about this a lot in my interviews there.
| [deleted]
| i_like_waiting wrote:
| I am working in Business Intelligence/ reporting and this
| type of questioning is absolutely amazing to give out to
| juniors. Not because stakeholders would intentionally
| obfuscate something from us, but because juniors are
| doing too many assumptions.
|
| Recent example was "we need that person to fill this info
| manually, because she is communicating with other
| department". After deep diving with him by similar
| method, I discovered that opposite is true.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"The witness who "doesn't remember" or "isn't sure" about dates,
| times, distances, or amounts."
|
| That would be me. I honestly can't ever remember any date / phone
| number / time / etc without writing it down. FFS I can't even
| recall license plate of my car.
|
| >"Q. How far apart were your truck and Mrs. Agan's car apart the
| accident?
|
| A. I don't know.
|
| ... and it goes on and on"
|
| Yes I do not remember the distance. I can tell that it is
| probably between 5 and 15 feet. There is no fucking evasion here.
| Learn to ask correct question instead.
|
| >"Effective exhaustion is the use of simple follow-up questions
| like the following after each answer:
|
| ...
|
| "Tell me more"
|
| ... "
|
| I am sorry Mr. Lawyer. I am not here to create stories possibly
| endangering sides without merit. Ask fucking particular
| questions.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| It doesn't matter _why_ you 're doing it. Whether you're
| deliberately evasive or not, you're not stating facts that
| answer the question. The purpose of a deposition is to develop
| a record about the facts the witness can state in testimony.
| It's a correct question _because_ it demands a specific factual
| answer.
|
| > I am not here to create stories
|
| Exactly, which is why your response to "tell me more" is to say
| there is no more to tell. The lawyer needs to know you're on
| the same page about not creating stories. That way if "more"
| suddenly comes up in trial, the judge or jury can fairly weigh
| why you are all of a sudden willing to create stories at trial.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"you're not stating facts that answer the question"
|
| Not my problem. I am not here do the guesswork and tell semi-
| facts that could be further twisted to advance someone's
| goal. Learn to ask proper questions. That is one of the
| things you get paid for.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| I'm curious what you think a better question would be,
| given that in the example, the witness _could_ in fact have
| said from the outset "I didn't measure, but at least 5
| feet, say the distance between you and me, and closer than
| about 15 feet; say from the wall to the end of the table."
|
| What better question than the one that directly asks for
| specific the information that's needed?
| FpUser wrote:
| In this particular distance situation it is simple - tell
| me _approximate_ distance in familiar way (this is to use
| size of the room as an example as the person may not
| actually grok feet) and I will answer accordingly. Do not
| ask whole bunch of questions instead and call the answers
| evasive as that lawyer has.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| Keep in mind the article is _about_ dealing with evasion.
| You seem to be assuming that "I don't know" is being
| seen as evasive, but it's really being _assumed_ because
| that 's what the article is about.
|
| Also, depositions are by law conducted the same way
| testimony at a trial would be, so the lawyer can't
| herself testify-asking a whole lot of questions is
| mandatory.
|
| Are you saying you think the lawyer should say "The
| distance from you to me is about five feet. The distance
| to the wall is about fifteen feet. The distance to that
| building you see through the window is about eighty feet.
| How far away would you say <thing> was?" Because that
| seems unnecessary when an appropriate answer would be "I
| don't know how many feet, but about the distance to that
| wall."
| denton-scratch wrote:
| "Tell me more"
|
| "Can I just tell you anything I like, or is there something in
| particular that you'd like me to tell you?"
|
| That's part of his boxing-in strategy, I think. As a juror, I
| think I'd be unimpressed by an examiner asking such an open
| non-question. As a witness, it would make me angry (which
| someone up-thread has noted would mean I've lost that hand).
|
| Also, if I'm not sure, then I'm _not_ going to testify under
| oath that I am sure. Asking me repeatedly is badgering, and it
| won 't change my answer.
| smarx007 wrote:
| No, this is a shrewd defense against a witness saying in
| court "but the opposing lawyer didn't let me speak and only
| told me to answer their questions, that's why it's not in the
| deposition".
| mannykannot wrote:
| Q. Okay, then could they have been more than 25 feet apart, say
| the length of this room?
|
| A. Is this room 25 feet long?
|
| Don't agree to something you have not verified.
|
| Q. If someone showed you photos of the scene would that
| possibly allow you recollect something about seeing Mr. Smith's
| car? (asking if reviewing a document might change recollection)
|
| A. It might implant a false impression that I remember more
| than I do.
|
| Alternatively,
|
| A. I very much doubt it, but if you think there are pictures
| that will, show them to me.
|
| If a lawyer took that bait, she might be setting herself up for
| an "if the glove doesn't fit" moment, where the witness denies
| that any evidence presented makes a difference to her recall.
| loeg wrote:
| The questions are intentionally leading to the conclusion the
| lawyer wants a jury to reach. It's intended to be hostile. If
| you react angrily, that serves the lawyer's purpose.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| And lawyers wonder why they are considered lowerer than a
| subterranean snake's belly when they openly waste vast
| amounts of people's time to manipulatively build a sophistic
| self serving narrative....
| FpUser wrote:
| If I calmly tell lawyer to go back to high school and learn
| haw to ask questions that could be answered without the doubt
| whose purpose does it serve?
| loeg wrote:
| Lawyer's. Because it's perceived as juvenile.
| FpUser wrote:
| Why would I care what it's being perceived like?
| function_seven wrote:
| Because the deposition, when played for a jury in a civil
| suit, may cause them to find against you or the party you
| align with.
| FpUser wrote:
| "...party you align with." That is a big assumption. I
| prefer not to align. If for whatever reason I am aligning
| with party I will of course take that into account.
| unanswered wrote:
| Because mostly the answers don't matter and the only
| thing that does matter is the fact finder's opinion of
| the parties.
| FpUser wrote:
| So your are telling me that we only have kangaroo courts?
| Well I sort of suspected it. thanks for confirming.
| tptacek wrote:
| Classic illustration of this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZbqAMEwtOE
| smcl wrote:
| So this reminds me of an amazing situation during a deposition
| for a case involving voice actor Vic Mignona suing some people
| because their tweets and calls[0] caused him to lose work. So a
| guy called Ron Toye is being questioned over some tweets and Ty
| Beard (the lawyer conducting the deposition) _just_ needs to get
| him to authenticate that some tweets are his:
|
| Ty Beard: Look at all these pages, are these all your tweets?
|
| Ron Toye: I don't recall making them, but that's my twitter
| handle yeah
|
| TB: Are those your tweets?
|
| RT: It looks like it, yes
|
| TB: Yes? Is that a "yes"?
|
| RT: It looks like it, yes
|
| TB: I need you to say yes or no [1]
|
| RT: ... or it looks like it
|
| So this goes on for pages, the frustrated lawyer (who appears to
| be pretty poorly equipped to handle the situation) being given
| the runaround by just A Guy. There is a really funny discussion
| of this - including more of the deposition transcript - in the
| ALAB podcast's episode "Weeb Wars Pt 2" @
| https://soundcloud.com/alabpodcast/episode-5-weeb-wars-pt-2
| (deposition chat starts 28 minutes in, lasts 10 minutes). It even
| escalates, it's great :D
|
| edit: to be clear, I think the person being stupid in this
| scenario is Ty Beard, not Ron Toye :D
|
| [0] - arguably Vic Mignona's own general creepiness caused this,
| but these guys tweeted about that
|
| [1] - he really doesn't
| howdydoo wrote:
| I didn't listen to the podcast, but let me play devil's
| advocate for a second. For most people, tweets are fire and
| forget, and they can't remember everything they've ever posted.
| If a lawyer hands me a binder with 38 pages of tweets, I don't
| know where he got them. If it turns out a tweet on page 15 was
| doctored, and I say "yes these tweets are mine", then I just
| confessed under oath to something I didn't do. In that position
| I would answer questions in good faith, but I would also never
| confirm anything under oath unless I was damn sure it was the
| truth.
|
| I'm sure this attitude would piss off a lot of lawyers, but
| lucky for you I'm not a white collar criminal, so you don't
| need to worry about meeting me in a courtroom.
| smcl wrote:
| I totally agree with you
| ghaff wrote:
| Even longer articles/blogs/research notes/etc. I've probably
| written thousands of them. If someone asks me if I wrote one,
| especially one that I didn't have final editorial approval
| over, the best I could probably say in many cases is that I
| vaguely recall writing something like that and it seems to
| reflect what I believed to be true at the time.
|
| Ditto for verbal communications. I had a call with a lawyer
| at a vendor once asking me about a conversation I had with a
| reporter. (Not a deposition.) As I recall :-), my answer was
| along the lines of I know the journalist in question and have
| spoken to them many times and I vaguely remember being
| briefed at some point by the $VENDOR in question on $TOPIC
| but I have no idea who I spoke with or exactly when it was.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I used to run a blog where I just posted helpful articles
| because my article would be better than whatever else was
| out there. Think: "Renewing your passport" or the like, but
| for my country.
|
| I'd sometimes Google an issue and end up back on my own
| website reading an article I forgot I already wrote.
| bink wrote:
| I used to work for a software company known for it's
| militant transparency. I'd often come across a technical
| problem that I wanted to solve so I'd open a public issue
| on the problem and plan to come back to it a week or two
| later. Inevitably when I did get around to starting work
| and ran a search the top hit would be my own public
| issue.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Yeah,
|
| All the things that article describes as "evasiveness" are
| what I'd describe as taking into account the messiness of the
| world. I mean, I might remember being at a restaurant with
| people and deciding to go to a show with them. Did I actually
| go to the show? I don't know, maybe I changed my mind on the
| way if I have no memory of the show or maybe I did go.
|
| A lot of the article seems about ways to bully people into
| making "obvious" conclusions, stating things definitely when
| they are not, in fact sure of their answers and so-forth. And
| a lot of tactics are about the common sense of language.
| "Surely you'd remember X if you in fact did it" "Come on,
| either the situation had X quality or it didn't" etc. In
| contrast to this intuition, I think there are quite a few
| studies on memory and language having some inherent fuzziness
| to them.
|
| Edit: in defense of the parent article, it's writing in an
| assumed context of professionals operating according to
| standards. In this context, people have both an obligation
| and a series of reminders to be exact in their memory of
| events and the events themselves should be more cut-and-
| dried. The real problem is someone expects this standard of
| exactness to carry over to casual human activity (writing,
| tweeting or socializing).
| js2 wrote:
| Nothing will ever really top Bill Clinton's "It depends on what
| the meaning of the word 'is' is."
| JasonFruit wrote:
| > he really doesn't
|
| That's the thing, after all: the guy is obligated to give true
| answers, not answers that would be convenient for the lawyers.
| There's no requirement that you make their job easy.
| smcl wrote:
| Absolutely
| wodenokoto wrote:
| There is a similar story about an office worker not knowing
| what a photocopy machine is.
|
| The New York Times did an amazing reenactment from transcripts
| of the legal deposition
|
| https://youtu.be/PZbqAMEwtOE
| js2 wrote:
| _Here 's the fuller story: The Cuyahoga's Recorder's Office
| charged $2 per page... even when it was simply a CD full of
| documents. That literally meant they were charging over
| $200,000 for a single CD of publicly available documents. The
| companies that needed these documents were understandably
| frustrated. That's why they sued. The recorder's office spent
| $55,000 of taxpayer's money defending themselves... and they
| lost.
|
| The person refusing to acknowledge what a photocopier is, was
| Lawrence Patterson. He was head of information technology for
| the recorder's office, and even after the loss of the case
| was still working for the county on a salary of $65,000(!).
|
| The lawyer questioning him was David Marburger. He pointed
| out afterwards that if the recorder's office had just
| accepted the more reasonable sum of $50 per CD, which the
| companies suing the recorder's office had offered, they would
| have made $25,000 -- instead they lost $55,000.
|
| Marburger has said of the video that the emotions were all
| wrong: "I actually wanted [Patterson] to keep up what I
| perceived as a charade. Once he chose the path that he took,
| I didn't want a straight answer; I wanted him to keep it
| going. That was why I kept pushing over the course of 10
| pages of transcript. To me, the testimony became too good to
| be true. It was perfect."
|
| He also said that Patterson wasn't the slightest bit
| intimidated in real life.
|
| Marburger used the absurd testimony to win the case, and the
| court unanimously agreed that they only charge $1 per CD
| moving forward._ -- thunderpeel2001
| Lochleg wrote:
| I knew exactly what "jargon" the IT worker was going to
| use, and I've never worked in an office like that. Of
| course, I assumed he was being pedantic at first. If a
| lawyer only needs to find a government office worker that
| has lost his mind to win a case, it's just not fair.
| mtlynch wrote:
| I loved that scene. It features the fantastic but tragically
| underused John Ennis, most famous for his work on Mr. Show.
|
| I remember when it came out, I felt like the Verbatim series
| was really well done, but it was surprising coming from the
| _NY Times_ since it was so outside their wheelhouse. It seems
| like they abandoned it pretty quickly but I wish someone more
| like Funny or Die would pick up the idea.
| lovecg wrote:
| I guess you can follow up with something like "what are some
| reasons it looks like it to you" and then follow that trail.
| cryptonector wrote:
| OK, so it's your handle. Do you ever tweet? Who tweets on your
| account? ...
| WJW wrote:
| An interesting style of questioning for adversarial situations.
| Engineers are usually taught to use very open questions
| (why/what/who/when/etc) so as to not inadvertently steer the
| situation to a predetermined conclusions. This is very useful for
| cooperative situations, such as a team trying to find the root
| case of some outage so that it can be fixed.
|
| In more adversarial situations such as pitching your manager on a
| raise, I can see how using many short and closed questions will
| steer the conversation much more effectively by closing down
| options for the counterparty to evade. It's very similar to the
| "yes ladder" used in some sales courses.
| dave333 wrote:
| There should be another article for the prospective witness:
| Dealing With The Snarky Lawyer
| jedimastert wrote:
| Super duper off topic, but the second period in the second
| paragraph is in bold and it's surprisingly distracting. Not like
| "can't bare to read the rest of the article" but it did make me
| stop and check the source to make sure I wasn't crazy.
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