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Brass View Drop Down
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    Posted: 01 Jun 14 at 10:32am
Originally posted by Stevie_GTI

Remembering incidents on the water seems to be hard for some sailors. Having just done a squad camp week which involved a race series in which there were incidents and protests we found that accounts of the incidents can be rather different.
Protests were heard, without witnesses (to aid the speed of the process as it was training), the jury made their decision on the evidence heard and once the decision had been made the incidents were reviewed on video. It was surprising how different and incident can sound from two sailors accounts to how it looks on video.
This might be interesting.

Did the incident as videoed:
  1. match up fairly closely with the description/evidence of one of the parties?
  2. match up with the relevant facts found by the protest committee, but not the detailed description of the party?
  3. Differ from the facts found by the protest committee at all or for a significant proportion of the cases?
What else did you learn from that process?
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Stevie_GTI View Drop Down
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Posts: 134 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Stevie_GTI Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Jun 14 at 9:57am
Remembering incidents on the water seems to be hard for some sailors. Having just done a squad camp week which involved a race series in which there were incidents and protests we found that accounts of the incidents can be rather different.
Protests were heard, without witnesses (to aid the speed of the process as it was training), the jury made their decision on the evidence heard and once the decision had been made the incidents were reviewed on video. It was surprising how different and incident can sound from two sailors accounts to how it looks on video.
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Brass View Drop Down
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Posts: 1151 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Brass Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 May 14 at 1:32am
Originally posted by JimC

OTOH if I came across an obviously carefully coached crew that might make me draw some conclusions too.

One needs to be careful here, just as one needs to be careful with the 'well he would say that' approach.

Just because a witness gives a clear, concise and fluent account, does not mean that he or she has been 'coached' or 'schooled'.

It may be that the facts were clearly visible and the witness has the gift of concise and fluent expression.

The Judges Manual s K12 says

Do not confuse confident witnesses with accurate ones

Much less should we confuse a confident witness with an inaccurate witness.

We should also remember that there is absolutely nothing wrong with a boat's representative reviewing the evidence with one of her witnesses.

Even if we get the notion that a witness has been 'schooled' we have to be very careful with how we deal with that testimony.  We certainly can't reject it out of hand.  We have to weigh the testimony, schooled or not and decide on its worth.

But, I have to say, in my experience, some of the most successful representatives, in protest hearings mumble and pause a lot, look at their feet, and generally come across as not too smart, but miraculously, when the protest committee comes to put their decision together, it's all there, logical and complete, going the way of the mumbler <g>.



Edited by Brass - 02 May 14 at 1:37am
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Brass View Drop Down
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Posts: 1151 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Brass Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 May 14 at 1:13am
Originally posted by Presuming Ed

But how often do crew witnesses bring anything new to the table? IME, they tend to tell a very similar story to the boats' original representatives. They're generally sitting somewhere similar, and rarely in the right position. For judging the establishment of overlaps, you want someone placed where a wing umpire would be. Outside that, I don't see why 2 people from one boat - especially dinghies, where people are sitting next to each other - saying "we had an overlap" holds any greater weight than one person saying the same thing.

Originally posted by Presuming Ed

IME, three people from one boat saying the same thing has no greater weight than one person. Shades of [Mandy Rice-Davies]"They would say that, wouldn't they."[/MRD]
 

It's not a question of 'bringing anything new'.  It's a question of corroboration.

When, subject to your very valid reservations about position, distance, lines of sight and so on, a witness gives evidence, which we should assume to be truthful unless we have good reason to doubt it, about what they saw, heard and felt in an incident and that evidence is consistent with and corroborative of the evidence of one party, and contrary to the evidence of another, then we should prefer the consistent version of the party and the witness over the uncorroborated evidence of the other party.

As I said before

Originally posted by Brass

Telling lies in a protest hearing is a gross breach of sportsmanship and subject to severe penalties under rule 69.

Protest committees should primarily expect that witnesses, even though they may be crew or otherwise interested parties will tell the truth, and will not give untrue evidence in favour of their interest.

A protest committee has no business approaching the evidence of a witness on any basis other than that the witness will tell the truth to the best of their ability.

Originally posted by Roger

Surely this could be quite an issue in mixed fleets where 2 person boats are racing against, and maybe involved in a protest with, a singlehander.

Assuming all witnesses are credible does the evidence from the 2 crew on one boat therefore carry more weight than the one in the singlehander?

The way in which evidence should be weighed by a protest committee can hardly be expected to vary because boats are one or two handed.

It could also be argued that the evidence of a single-hander was less credible because the single-handed skipper had a greater range of necessary tasks than any one of the crew of a crewed boat, and thus may have had less perfect observation and recall.

That's the way of things.


Edited by Brass - 02 May 14 at 1:19am
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ohFFsake View Drop Down
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Posts: 219 		Post Options Post Options   Quote ohFFsake Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 May 14 at 1:01am
Originally posted by Brass

In my opinion, the credible evidence of one witness, corroborated by the credible evidence of another witness is of greater weight than the contrary credible evidence of another witness alone.

Of course, if the evidence of your witness contradicts your own ... 
Point taken - and that of your earlier message. You are (as ever) absolutely right that bringing the crew as witness ought to have had some effect, especially in the case where said crew is sufficiently young and free of guile that a skilled PC should be able to determine whether their evidence is genuine or "coached".

(In this instance it wasn't possible - the protest was heard on Easter Monday when we were away at a regatta)

In the general case, I get the feeling that this is an area where procedure has improved markedly over the years. Way back when I was a youth, the general feeling was that protests were very much about onus and burden of proof - if you were the port  in a port v starboard then the default situation was that you would lose every time unless you had an impressive array of independent witnesses.

Now it seems that a correctly run PC should treat every piece of evidence on its own merits and assume nothing by default. This I think is a Good Thing, and if nothing else this thread has been very interesting in terms of covering this point.
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JimC View Drop Down
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Posts: 6661 		Post Options Post Options   Quote JimC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 May 14 at 10:16pm
OTOH if I came across an obviously carefully coached crew that might make me draw some conclusions too.
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Roger View Drop Down
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Posts: 524 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Roger Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 May 14 at 8:24pm
Originally posted by Brass

In my opinion, the credible evidence of one witness, corroborated by the credible evidence of another witness is of greater weight than the contrary credible evidence of another witness alone. 


Surely this could be quite an issue in mixed fleets where 2 person boats are racing against, and maybe involved in a protest with, a singlehander.

Assuming all witnesses are credible does the evidence from the 2 crew on one boat therefore carry more weight than the one in the singlehander?
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Presuming Ed View Drop Down
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Posts: 641 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Presuming Ed Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 May 14 at 3:37pm
Well, exactly. It's very nice when one side's witnesses destroys their own side's case. Not common, IME (but does happen). But again IME, three people from one boat saying the same thing has no greater weight than one person. Shades of [Mandy Rice-Davies]"They would say that, wouldn't they."[/MRD]  
 
It's not unknown for PC chairs over here to say "It's now time for witnesses. If your witnesses are crewmembers, then in our experience they tend to back up the story of their boat, and don't bring much new to the proceedings, but it does take more time. We all want to - within the constraints of doing our job properly - do this reasonably quickly. So you might consider whether it's worth bringing your crew into the room. But as I say, it's entirely your choice".
 
Most seem to go along with that.


Edited by Presuming Ed - 01 May 14 at 3:50pm
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Brass View Drop Down
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Posts: 1151 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Brass Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 May 14 at 2:59pm
In my opinion, the credible evidence of one witness, corroborated by the credible evidence of another witness is of greater weight than the contrary credible evidence of another witness alone.

Of course, if the evidence of your witness contradicts your own ... 


Edited by Brass - 01 May 14 at 3:00pm
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Presuming Ed View Drop Down
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Posts: 641 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Presuming Ed Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 May 14 at 2:21pm
Originally posted by Brass

Don't want to beat a dead horse about the decision, but, given that this was obviously a 'he said/she said' case from the start, L was stark mad to have gone into the room without his crew as a witness
 
But how often do crew witnesses bring anything new to the table? IME, they tend to tell a very similar story to the boats' original representatives. They're generally sitting somewhere similar, and rarely in the right position. For judging the establishment of overlaps, you want someone placed where a wing umpire would be. Outside that, I don't see why 2 people from one boat - especially dinghies, where people are sitting next to each other - saying "we had an overlap" holds any greater weight than one person saying the same thing.
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