Weird Colorado Laws – There Are No Liars in Colorado Courts – The Law Offices of Steven Rodemer, Colorado Springs
(Portion I: ODD Guidelines IN COLORADO)
In courtroom dramas on Television set or in the films, you will find frequently a scene wherever a witness, even following swearing on a stack of Bibles and his useless mother’s grave that he will notify the reality, the entire fact and absolutely nothing but the truth of the matter, can take the witness stand and then says a thing that’s not accurate.
On-display, a single of the attorneys leaps to their toes, details their finger at the witness, and shouts for the whole courtroom to hear:
“LIAR!”
In the State of Colorado, nevertheless, this can by no means occur – there are no “lies” or “liars” in Colorado courts.
In Colorado, as the Colorado Supreme Court docket wrote in the circumstance of Crider v. People today, 186 P.3d 39, 41 (Colo. 2008), “it is incorrect for a lawyer to use any kind of the word ‘lie’ in characterizing for a jury a witness’s testimony or his truthfulness.”
That individual word is banned “for a selection of good reasons. It is prohibited not only mainly because it poses a possibility of speaking the lawyer’s private viewpoint about the veracity of a witness and implying that the law firm is privy to information and facts not right before the jury, but also basically mainly because the term ‘lie’ is an inflammatory term, very likely (whether or not in fact intended) to evoke potent and unfavorable emotional reactions versus the witness.”
As much back again as in 1981, the Colorado Supreme Court docket has claimed, as they did in the situation of Hughes v. Point out, 437 A. 2d 559, 571 (Colo. 1981), “In our feeling, ‘liar’ is an epithet to be made use of sparingly in argument to the jury. It is a flashboard a lot more most likely to produce warmth in a contentious courtroom than it is to illuminate the research for truth. […] We say this because a witness or a social gathering may possibly be mistaken, uninformed, or faulty in his facts or conclusions in numerous strategies, and nonetheless not be a liar labeling a witness as a ‘liar’ or to argue that he has ‘lied’ is to say anything very different about his testimony.”
“Some text or analogies by their quite mother nature resonate extra powerfully in the coronary heart and minds of the jury,” the Colorado Supreme Court wrote in the situation of Domingo-Gomez v. Persons, 125 P.3d 1043 1050 (Colo. 2005). These types of words and phrases “evoke strong reactions in jurors and get them down the route in direction of a conviction where the evidence does not essentially lead. The word ‘lie’ is these a robust expression that it always demonstrates the personalized view of the speaker. When spoken by the State’s consultant in the courtroom, the word ‘lie’ has the risky probable of swaying the jury from their obligation to identify the accused’s guilt or innocence on the proof correctly offered at trial.”
In other phrases, if a lawyer phone calls a little something a “lie,” it is this sort of a stunning curse that a jury could not be ready to get in excess of it, and may possibly convict an if not innocent man or woman, just for the reason that they sense so strongly about “liars.”
Therefore, no law firm is permitted to at any time use any variation of the phrase “lie” in Colorado courtrooms.
Whilst odd regulations are entertaining to go through about, we know that when you happen to be sitting in the courtroom, it is almost never fun or entertaining. The skilled legal protection team at The Regulation Places of work of Steven Rodemer is in this article to help you navigate the prison justice method and assure your legal rights are guarded all through the procedure. Speak to us currently to assure you get the expert legal representation you should have.