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don groves
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 3:41 am
Post subject: Re: 'yes' and/or 'no' ? |
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In article <2v218cF2hga19U1@uni-berlin.de>, Maria Conlon at
mariaconlon001@hotmail.com poured forth...
| Quote: | don groves wrote:
Maria Conlon poured forth...
[...]
The original poster, Mike Morgan, wondered if he could answer both
"yes" and "no" to a question and still be telling the truth (about
having three cars when asked if he had two). I would propose
answering "Yes and no" -- those three words -- to questions like
that. Even in court, it seems that that would bring about another
question, the answer to which could clear up the matter.
An answer of "Yes and no" would bring an immediate objection
because you were instructed to answer "yes" or "no".
The part about answering with a "Yes" or a "No" only was an add-on to
the original question, and I wonder if such instructions are given in
Real Life courts these days. Anyone know? (In the actual court
situations I've seen, no such restriction has ever been made.)
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They always did it on Perry Mason, so it must be legit.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster)
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Skitt
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 4:11 am
Post subject: Re: 'yes' and/or 'no' ? |
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Maria Conlon rakstija:
| Quote: | don groves wrote:
Maria Conlon poured forth...
[...]
The original poster, Mike Morgan, wondered if he could answer both
"yes" and "no" to a question and still be telling the truth (about
having three cars when asked if he had two). I would propose
answering "Yes and no" -- those three words -- to questions like
that. Even in court, it seems that that would bring about another
question, the answer to which could clear up the matter.
An answer of "Yes and no" would bring an immediate objection
because you were instructed to answer "yes" or "no".
The part about answering with a "Yes" or a "No" only was an add-on to
the original question, and I wonder if such instructions are given in
Real Life courts these days. Anyone know? (In the actual court
situations I've seen, no such restriction has ever been made.)
|
According to the Federal Rules of Evidence, the questions requiring a yes or
no answer fall in the class of leading questions and are not allowable
unless the witness is deemed to be a hostile one. Then they are permitted,
but the restriction to purely yes or no answers is a TV gimmick, it seems.
See Rule 611c at http://classaction.findlaw.com/research/fre.pdf
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/ |
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Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 5:20 am
Post subject: Re: 'yes' and/or 'no' ? |
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Skitt wrote:
| Quote: | According to the Federal Rules of Evidence, the questions requiring a yes or
no answer fall in the class of leading questions and are not allowable
unless the witness is deemed to be a hostile one. Then they are permitted,
but the restriction to purely yes or no answers is a TV gimmick, it seems.
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In general, leading questions are allowed in cross-examination but not in
direct examination. Check with Liebs for more.
--
Steny '08!
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Joe Fineman
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 8:50 am
Post subject: Re: 'yes' and/or 'no' ? |
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"mike morgan" <zazoo33@wp.pl> writes:
| Quote: | Suppose there's a guy who has 3 cars. He's got a friend, who knows
about one of the cars only and one day finds out about
another. Quite surprised he asks: -Do you have 2 cars?
And now what I want to know. Can the owner answer both "yes" and
"no" and still be telling the truth?
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It seems to me that questions of that kind contain an implied "at
least". I you have three cars, then, _a fortiori_, you have two cars,
and you have a car.
Surely, if you say "I've forgotten my wallet. Do you have 50 cents on
you?", I am not telling a lie if I say yes, though I have far more
cash on my person. Likewise, if you asked me "Are there ten piano
tuners in Chicago?", I might consider the economics of piano tuning &
the population of Chicago and answer yes, without even bothering to
estimate how many more there might be.
One might even defend such idioms on purely logical grounds.
Arguably, "I have two cars" means "There exist x and y such that x is
a car and y is a car and x is not y and I have x and I have y", and
that is true even if there happens to exist z such that, etc., etc.
--
--- Joe Fineman joe_f@verizon.net
||: Here is truth by the bucketful:  |
||: There's sex and friendship; the rest is bull. | |
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Jordan Abel
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:17 am
Post subject: Re: 'yes' and/or 'no' ? |
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Areff wrote:
| Quote: | Skitt wrote:
According to the Federal Rules of Evidence, the questions requiring a yes
or no answer fall in the class of leading questions and are not allowable
unless the witness is deemed to be a hostile one. Then they are
permitted, but the restriction to purely yes or no answers is a TV
gimmick, it seems.
In general, leading questions are allowed in cross-examination but not in
direct examination. Check with Liebs for more.
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Because in cross-examination, it is pretty much by definition (at least, the
definition given for "hostile" in this case) a hostile witness, isn't it? |
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R J Valentine
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:55 am
Post subject: Re: 'yes' and/or 'no' ? |
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On Sat, 06 Nov 2004 23:17:22 -0500 Jordan Abel <jmabel@purdue.edu> wrote:
....
} Because in cross-examination, it is pretty much by definition (at least, the
} definition given for "hostile" in this case) a hostile witness, isn't it?
Not necessarily. I was a prosecution witness in one case, and I could see
the defendant mulling over my answers and nodding affirmatively after each
one, except for the one thing he and another witness contradicted me on
(my word against theirs, you might say). I suspect that they've got to
establish that a witness is definitively hostile before treating one as
such. I don't think it would have been smart to treat me as hostile.
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:rj@smart.net>
"You want hostile? I got your hostile right here." |
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Jordan Abel
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 12:54 am
Post subject: Re: 'yes' and/or 'no' ? |
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R J Valentine wrote:
| Quote: | On Sat, 06 Nov 2004 23:17:22 -0500 Jordan Abel <jmabel@purdue.edu> wrote:
...
} Because in cross-examination, it is pretty much by definition (at least,
the } definition given for "hostile" in this case) a hostile witness,
isn't it?
Not necessarily. I was a prosecution witness in one case, and I could see
the defendant mulling over my answers and nodding affirmatively after each
one, except for the one thing he and another witness contradicted me on
(my word against theirs, you might say). I suspect that they've got to
establish that a witness is definitively hostile before treating one as
such. I don't think it would have been smart to treat me as hostile.
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I thought "hostile" was a term meaning "for the opposing side" regardless of
actual hostility, and just because they _didn't_ doesn't mean they wouldn't
have been allowed to. |
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