Pirate Bay Day 5 — Prosecution Tries To Sneak In Evidence
Hodejo1 writes "On the old Perry Mason TV shows, it was a common sight to see someone burst into the crowded courtroom at a dire moment and confess aloud that they, not the defendant, killed so-and-so. In reality, courts do not allow evidence to enter trial without a chance for the opposing council to view it and for a judge to rule on their admissibility. Yet, in the fifth day of the Pirate Bay trial, lawyers for the prosecution again tried to sneak in surprise evidence while questioning defendants. The judge put his foot down this time, telling lawyers for the state, 'If you have documents which you eventually plan to use, you need to hand them over now.' The prosecution continues to struggle in court. In one humorous moment, prosecutor Håkan Roswall tried to show how 'hip' he was with technology when he questioned defendant Peter Sunde. 'When did you meet [Gottfrid] for the first time IRL?' asked the Prosecutor. 'We do not use the expression IRL,' said Peter, 'We use AFK.' The defendants are not out of the woods yet. Lawyer and technology writer Richard Koman wonders aloud if the Pirate Bay's 'I-dunno' defense is all that much better."
Past the Straits of Gibraltar is a continent, in the centre along the longest side, high in the mountains by the sea is a rectangular level plain...this is the Bolivian Altiplano. http://www.atlantisbolivia.org/atlantisboliviapart1.htm
IANAL, but having read a lot of Perry Mason stories I play being a lawyer on /.
In US law a witness can't say he heard someone say something. The person who spoke what the witness heard should be called as a witness instead.
That's because the speaker, not being under oath, wasn't necessarily telling the truth. In court, after having sworn to tell the truth, the person can be questioned on what was told.
The assertion that whatever you tell a cop can be used against you doesn't mean he can repeat what you said as a witness, but that he can use what you told him to make investigations about you.
If you tell a cop "I have a kilo of cocaine in the trunk" he can look and use the cocaine as evidence against you. If he finds nothing, he cannot arrest you and he cannot tell in court as a witness that you said that. However, suppose the cop stopped you because your brake light was broken, and you had cocaine in the trunk. If you keep quiet, he cannot look into the trunk to see if you are carrying something illegal there.
That's because the Fourth Ammendment to the US Constitution states that the police needs a "probable cause" to search your property. They cannot just go searching people's houses and cars at random. By telling the cop you have cocaine, you are giving him a probable cause to perform a reasonable search.
But again, what you told the cop cannot be used against you in court. If they later find out that the cocaine was put there by someone else, without your knowledge, and you were just joking when you told the cop you had cocaine, the most they can charge you is with obstructing justice because you cannot joke with cops who are performing their duty.
I'd say that Swedes and others who have English as their second language in general are better on separating homophones than those with English as their first language. I can't remember ever seeing a swede mixing up their/they're/there, your/you're or site/sight. I frequently see Americans and UKians doing that. For some reason, mixing up then/than and lose/loose seems very common though. Furthermore we never use "whom" and "neither...nor" and we always have a problem deciding whether to use "who", "that" or "which". :)
o_O What? Do you mean "British" or "Englishmen"? C'mon, please pick an already existing word. There's more than enough of them.
*awaits off-topic moderation*
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.