Prosecutor Loses Case For Citing Wikipedia

Hugh Pickens writes "The Philippine Daily Inquirer reports on a recent case where the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) lost an appeal after seeking to impeach the testimony of a defendant's expert witness by citing an article from Wikipedia. In her brief, the defendant said 'the authority, alluded to by oppositor-appellant, the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders DSM-IV-TR," was taken from an Internet website commonly known as Wikipedia,' and argued that Wikipedia itself contains a disclaimer saying it 'makes no guarantee of validity.' The court in finding for the defendant said in its decision that it found 'incredible ... if not a haphazard attempt, on the part of the (OSG) to impeach an expert witness, with, as pointed out by (the defendant) unreliable information. This is certainly unacceptable evidence, nothing short of a mere allegation totally unsupported by authority.'"

Comments

Re:so...

[mcgrew]

It doesn't matter which was right, what matters is you don't use an encyclopedia, any encyclopedia as a source to cite. If you try to cite wikipedia (or Britannica) in a college class, you'll flunk your paper.

I don't see how anybody who's ever been to college (including someone like me who was in college long before the internet existed) could be ignorant of this. Encyclopedias are only a starting point; you don't cite them in your paper, or in court. You go for their sources for your real research.

Summary not so clear

[spun]

The summary is clear as mud, but it sounds like the prosecutors made reference to the DSM. Why refer to the wikipedia article on it? The DSM itself is the authority on psychological disorders. If wiki quoted the DSM correctly, then it is likely correct on the matter. So why did the prosecutor cite wiki, and not the actual authoritative source that wiki cites? Stupid.