Comments by "SmallSpoonBrigade" (@SmallSpoonBrigade) on "Can You Say 'No' When Asked to Tell the Truth in Court?" video.

  1. No such requirement, but without a fixed address or mailbox it can make service trickier. Worst case scenario is that the judge can authorize the notice to be posted somewhere like a newspaper and call it good enough. But, I think that requires that they believe you to be in the area, that's not likely to fly if they suspect you're living on the other side of the country or overseas.
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  2. That's not tenacity, that's idiocy. And it shouldn't be complimented. Now, if it were something more important like being roped into falsely testifying to put somebody in prison, that would be laudable.
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  3. TBH, I suspect that if this was going to come up, it would come up prior to actually being called to the stand. But, it's going to depend a bit on how much risk there is and how important the testimony is to the case. Witness protection is a thing that exists, so there is a provision in cases where the danger is substantial and the information is important. It's also worth realizing that attorneys probably don't want to use witnesses that are that averse to being there if possible, as they have even less of an idea about what's going to happen than normal. I'm guessing that either what they thought you could testify about wasn't that important, or that they had different witnesses to cover the information.
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  4. From what I understand, technically you do, but in practice it's not enforced often, if at all. This is probably less of an issue with modern courtroom procedures disallowing one party to ask a long string of questions that you have to specifically take the 5th on, or even take the stand if you intend to take the 5th more broadly and juries being instructed to ignore the fact that the defendant is taking the 5th when considering the evidence. But, back in the day, I'm sure that lying as the defendant was more or less mandatory if you wanted a reasonably fair trial.
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  5.  @walterk1221  It's not required, but it makes it harder for them to argue that they never received it.
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  6. It is though. If you don't take the oath, then as far as the court goes, it's not usable by any of the parties involved in the legal action. It's basically just hearsay for all practical purposes.
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  7. It means that when you're answering you're answering the question that's been asked without gerrymandering around things that are inconvenient. Typically, the attorneys will ask more questions to follow up if anything truly significant is left out. They've usually already asked a bunch of other questions during the depositions stage of proceedings. Once you're at trial, they should already know about anything truly significant.
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  8. Obviously, if you're hit by a bus on the way in, you'd be off the hook after explaining to the judge why you didn't show up and potentially providing some evidence that it happened. That's why it isn't automatically pay this fine and sheriffs coming to drag you off to jail for contempt.
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  9. You appear and then once then, they can call you to the stand. It's a bit of semantics as you get this sort of subpoena and you know that you might be called to testify. You might not be, the attorneys might run short on time and not need the extra corroboration.
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  10. Yes, not only can you be drug into court for a hearing, and then either fined or imprisoned, but during any further proceedings the attorneys will have a field day with it when trying to damage the witness's credibility. It happened to a witness when I was on jury duty and in addition to being fined, the attorneys made a huge deal over the fact that he just didn't show up. The inference being that he's not the most reliable witness. What the jury does with that will likely vary a lot.
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  11. No amendment is absolute.
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  12. Potentially, but it's a bit like asking about jury nullification, it often results in being blocked from the panel, but if the judge thinks it's an insincere dodge they might order you on anyways.
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  13. Probably not, typically witnesses will be answering questions that they've already had to answer for depositions or when being questioned by the investigating officer. A truly inappropriate question coming up during trial proceedings is rather unlikely, as it's incredibly risky for the attorneys to ask a question that they don't already know the expected response for. But, if it does happen, usually one set of attorneys will object if there's any grounds to do so.
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