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We are all familiar one with to call our customer, our eyewitnesses, and our experts to the position. But of time in time, there are positions where a non traditional witness has important the news. Never having seen it does, we wonder if we can call this person to the process. I call these strange witnesses.

Which can be a witness?

The customary right excluded often strange witnesses as incompetent. Now, practically everyone is presumed "competent" to be witness under Federal Reserve Bank. &The amplifier; S.C. Rs. Evid. 601. There are some exceptions.

The judge that does not preside can be witness in the same case on which it or she presides. The rule 605. A juror is incompetent to testify, although in the rare cases that the juror could be allowed indicating prejudicial the news outside of the question or outside the influences on the jury itself. The rule 606. Then there are laws as the Law of the Corpse and the rule of proof of parol (in fact the two a rule ra¨glementaire under the UCC and also a rule of customary right) that points out incompetent.

As I said, there is not a lot of exceptions to competence. The more difficult question is if the certain strange witnesses, although technically competent, be able or have Is called.

The testimony of post process by the judges

Approve, the judges are not strange. Nevertheless, they are not your everyday witness. Are rarely judges blocked absolutely to testify in the processes where they are not the president the lawful officer. When a testimony is foreseen judge is something that presented itself in a process or a previous case, person wants to call it or she unless absolutely necessary. I suspect that the problem presents itself more often with the judicial system of the state than in the federal courts, and in my experience, the judge tried typically to be witness is a magistrate of the state. This is true for two reasons: (One) first, although keeping report a lot is improved in the modern times, sometimes the report of the magistrate is incomplete; (b) second, the magistrates sign the taken and the search warrants that are time in time the subject of assault in the courts of general meetings in the movements to eliminate.

Is so which the rule? The judges are not forbidden by Canon 2 of or the Code of Driving for United States Judge or the Caroline of the South Code of Lawful Driving of use involuntary (C.-a -d., under the quotation) the character witnesses; nevertheless, the Canon 2 demand the judge to discourage it call she, safe when the ask justice demand it. Think about him - imagines itself how uncomfortable you as an unfavorable lawyer would be if you had to accuse a credibility of the judge?

The judges are so competent to testify in later the previous processes of a case on which they were implied as the lawful officer. Nevertheless, the modern tendency is for not to leave them, "Unless the testimony: (1) is critical, and (2) can be obtained by no other means". Concerning Whetstone, 354 S.C. 213, 580 S.E.2d 447 (2003). See also United States v. not very elegant, 440 francs. Supp. 894 (W.D. Goes. 1977) (the examination of judges as for the basis for their rejected opinions "the absent, extreme and extraordinary circumstances"). "To show extraordinary circumstances, an assumption as for the regularity of the acts of public officers must be overcome first". The id. 440 francs. Supp. to 896.

The canon 2 warn also against the judges sweated sponte Communicate the news to a judge of condemnation or an officer of probation or corrections. Nevertheless, a judge can furnish the news to them so definitely asked.

Executive officers

Yes, the even executive officers can be done to testify. The president Monroe replied written questionings, the President Nixon had to reply to the quotations, and the President Ford was deposited in a criminal accusation. Brand Sanford was prosecuted in an action of declarative judgement in which it was claimed that it was ineligible to use the governor.

The apogee of an engagement of the federal executive officer with the lawful process is Bill Clinton. It testified in two video depositions for the usage in the criminal event. That was just his beginning. The Paula Jones v. William Jefferson Clinton, 520 Americans 681 (1997) the spectacles that even the more top officer executive in the earth could be prosecuted for the evil while in the office. All the same, in The Paula Jones v. William Jefferson Clinton, 36 francs. Supp. 2D 1118 (E.D. Arch. 1999), the President Clinton was tried and was found in contempt. Wright of judge found that his driving (remaining in depositions, questionings, a declaration under oath, and by his lawyer - the things like that) implied the malhonnaated, the fraud, the lie or the malrepredsentation, or was prejudicial to the justice administration. Oh ouais, then it there had put it in accusation before the House of Representatives.

The others officers in the executive branch could be deposited to suppose they have the knowledge of important facts. The Newspaper of Atlanta and Constitution v. Atlanta Department. of Aviation, 175 francs. R. D. 347 (N.D. Ga. 1997) (the mayor of Atlanta). Nevertheless, the more top on the food chain, the less having tendency a judge will be to allow the discovery. For example, it was held that an oral deposition of an officer of office level will not be any ordinary permit. The peuplades v. Department. of Farming, 427 561 (C.A.D.C. 1970). Of more, as with the judges, a member of the executive branch should not be deposited or should be examined of his officer process of decision take When the decision was done in an almost lawful manner. United States v. Morgan, 313 Americans 409 (1940) (the Secretary of Farming).

Legislators

Although they are excused court on the certain days during the legislative meeting, the legislators are generally competent and not privileged to testify to the process. Of time in time the one entendt to talk about a representative or of a senator is called as a character witness, as when the Senator Daniel Inouye testified recently in Alaska the Senator Ted Stevens the criminal process. Once I had an opponent names a legislator as a witness of just character days before the process. After thinking about him, I consented to abandon the last notification if my opponent promised To call the legislator.

More to interest is if a legislator can testify to the process of the legislative intention behind a law it wrote or with which it was implied. The federal courts take the notification of commentaries of the legislators on the house floor during the legislative process.

It is a lot harder one to determine this than continues in the general assembly of Caroline of the South, that refused firmly the true responsibility. The legislators express of ordinary one of the votes if of ordinary person knows definitely how They vote. Thus, it is with logic that since the days of Justice John Rutledge, the courts of Caroline of the South refuse to allow the to the members of the general assembly to indicate the legislative intention of a law, even when the wording of the law is uncertain. See Enforcers of Rippon v. The enforcers of Townsend, 1 S. C. L. (1 Bay) 445 (1795).

The ushers, the shedrifs, and the court clerks

The cases go the two manners on the propriety of call of an usher or a representative assigned as the security of room of audience to testify during the process. Evidemment, because the usher is agent of the public force a type of employee by the shedrif, there is a danger of prejudicing accused it. Some courts find a functioning of usher to a by itself of incompetent process to testify. The other courts allow an usher, or a shedrif that uses the usher, testify depend on the position. The problem turns often on how closely the usher is associated with the jurors to the process. For example, an usher that called simply the names of jurors while helping the clerk during to see terrible is less probable to influence them that the specific usher assigned to escort and to keep the jury through the process. See generally 98 C. J. THE S. Witnesses &The sect; 197 (Supp. 2008).

More common (and less problematic) are scenarios where a clerk of court is called to indicate the authenticity of report of audience in his office. This practice typically is allowed. It is rare to find a case where a party was denied the right to call a clerk as a witness (or the objects to a clerk are called).

The ultimate one in strangeness

In the closing, here the most curious one of all the strangeness of litigation of Caroline of the South. In 1935, Gov. Olin Johnson became terribly tired from first Road Commissioner Well Sawyer and his band of damned interference of confederates with politics of Johnson. They did not execute its political ones. (To seem familiar)? What has intervened of the sounds as a banana republic.

A clear day of October soon before Night of the witches, the Governor distributed a proclamation. In him, it declared the department of the state of road in a state of "insurrection" and of "rebellion". Gov. Johnson called the militia of the state (named recently the "the Troops Insurrectionnelles") under Frank Barnwell Major. Barnwell was ordered to seize all the roads, the ferries, and the bridges.

Major Barnwell invaded simultaneously the Office of the Constructing state where the offices of the commission of road were localized. The machine guns were planted to the entries of the building. The sentineies around were posted building. When the members of the commission of road tried to enter, they were pushed back. New, the commissioneies of road of supporter were named that emptied the 2,000 employees of the commission, including Well Sawyer. The militia seized also the check of several banks that have the money of department of road. Habeus corpus To suspended summer.

The supreme court heard the question in his original jurisdiction. In a unanimous opinion of 13 pages (by curium, naturally), the court said the Governor that there was not insurrection, to put back it of, and reestablished the status quo. Thank the goodness for the judicial system. For the ultimate one in strange, every lawyer should read Hearon v. Calus, 178 S.C. 381 (1935).

Next months: More strange witnesses!

Reprinted with the permission of the Bar of Caroline of the South. The item appeared at first in the problem May 2009 of magazine of Lawyer of Caroline of the South.