No, a statement is not evidence no matter how much you want it to be. A _sworn testimony_ of a _witness_ is evidence. But there can't really be any witness here, unless the person on the other end was extremely careless. So you get a bunch of hot air and unsubstantiated allegations which will never go anywhere.
Witness testimony is evidence. You don't have to believe him, but it is specious to reject a witness's testimony primarily on the grounds that it is not evidence.
I don’t think it can. You’d need the witness to testify or sign an affidavit and submit it as evidence. But there’s a lot of particulars about evidence so I think depends on how they said it.
If the plaintiffs have a sworn, signed statement from the person claiming that then it could be presented as evidence during the trial, subject to cross-examination.
If all they have is the article it's hearsay i.e. "evidence based not on a witness's personal knowledge but on another's statement not made under oath"
If I understand what you're saying correctly, this happens all the time: for instance, it has happened every time an answering machine tape has been entered into evidence.
No. An answering machine tape is not a person at criminal trial.
> nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself
You are talking about physical evidence; an answering machine tape, presumably recording some prior conversation, is a physical artifact that already exists. In no way can you construe examining a pre-constructed physical artifact as compelling a criminal defendant to witness against their self [It would imply criminal defendant is somehow the physical artifact itself.].
If I am not mistaken, 'witness' refers to making real claims about events at trial. Making real claims that one performed criminal activities at trial can be construed as evidence. An individual may conceal that evidence by not revealing it, and I don't believe US law allows any way to reveal such evidence.
Yeah, and yet the prosecutors in this story are saying they don't even have an obligation to let you know when their case has been shown to be fraudulent.
My point of eyewitness testimony is that it would truly convince the DA but wouldn't be valuable evidence in the trial. They could say "I think I saw him elsewhere" to be truthful but say it in a way that didn't give it enough weight to counteract the other, conflicting (because you weren't really there) evidence.
If this came out, the DA would not even face censure or reprimand, let alone firing or criminal charges.
In a court of law, personal testimony is evidence. It isn't necessarily compelling by itself, but the idea that it isn't evidence because you don't like it is not actually how the legal system (or culture) works.
> Original witness statements are the only things that are reliable.
Even those aren't that reliable; memory is fallible and people remember things wrong all the time. Statements give you nothing more than a vague idea of what might have happened.
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