Start Line Collision

Do not confuse confident witnesses with accurate ones · Originally posted by JimC

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