POST: "Why do we still bother with the oath?, by Andrew Fleischman, published on the Mimesis Law Blog on April 12, 2016. (Andrew Fleischman is an appellate public defender in Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from the Georgia State University College of Law, and spent a year in private DUI defense before entering public service. America’s criminal justice system continues to surprise him, not always pleasantly.)
GIST: "The oath is why the Supreme Court of the United States says it is fine for judges to tell juries to assume that witnesses are telling the truth, even though it kind of eviscerates the presumption of innocence when the defense doesn’t have any to call. But perjury has a hidden element. It’s not enough that a witness give a knowingly false, material statement under oath. They also have to make some prosecutor, somewhere, angry. And it has become a way to punish people with unpopular opinions. Scott Greenfield recently referred to the plight of Dr. John Plunkett, who found himself facing the possibility of years in jail for his testimony that a child had not fallen victim to Shaken Baby Syndrome. Meanwhile, across the pond, Dr. Waney Squier was banned from the practice of medicine after a panel found she had misled courts with her consistent testimony. Meanwhile, “experts” who testify consistently in favor of the prosecution rarely seem to find themselves in the same sort of legal trouble. As Radley Balko reports, forensic odontologists continue testifying across the country despite the fact that their work has been widely discredited. So what’s the point of the oath, then?
The entire post can be found at:
aw.com/fault-lines/why-do-we-still-bother-with-the-oath/8676
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.
Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
