On Wednesday, August 15, 2001, at 08:12 PM, Seth Finkelstein wrote:
On Wed, Aug 15, 2001 at 07:01:32PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
... Declan took the obvious and legal steps to limit his testimony to statements of the form:
"Yes, I am a reporter for "Wired News.""
"Yes, I wrote the story you are referring to."
"Yes, I affirm under oath that the article is true"
"Objection. The witness cannot attest to the "truth" of the article." The cross-examiner may ask whether the witness _believes_ his article to be based on fact, but his opinion as to its truthfulness or not does not establish facts in a case. A reporters _tape recorded notes_ or _contemporaneous notes_ are more probative, which is a major reason some important cases have involved courts ordering reporters to produce their notes and reporters then refusing. Was Declan asked about the "truth" of the article? Did he testify with the words above? (Yes, I tried to find this quote with Google. Either the transcript hasn't been released, hasn't been posted, hasn't been Google, or that phrase was not used...even "the article is true" as a phrasal fragment.) Declan can tell us what he recalls of the proceedings. Has the transcript ever been released? Regardless, you seem to have some personal vendetta against DM. --Tim May