When Is Ignorance Strength?
March 24, 2011 2:05 PM Subscribe
When is it legally, ethically, practically, or otherwise necessary for people NOT to know something? For example, I've heard of linguists trying to do research on monolingual native speakers (they can't know another language), or jurors, who can't know about the defendant. Bonus questions: why can't they know, and how is it enforced? I'm particularly interested if a person has to protect his or her own lack of knowledge.
Best answer: The concept of a Chinese wall is supposed to be used to prevent conflicts of interest within a business, most notable in an accounting/financial firm or law firm.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:09 PM on March 24, 2011
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:09 PM on March 24, 2011
Best answer: When I buy things, sometimes very expensive things, in my capacity as a buyer for DoD we hide the identities of the offerors. Offer A, Offer B, Offer C so the people evaluating the business proposal or technical proposal won't be influenced by what they think they already know about the offeror. They don't need to know it's a big company they've heard of vs. another company who may be equally well qualified that they haven't heard of.
posted by fixedgear at 2:11 PM on March 24, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by fixedgear at 2:11 PM on March 24, 2011 [1 favorite]
In computer system related privacy and security, it is generally considered best practice to store the least amount of information required to do something. This reduces the risks associated with data being stolen.
posted by dobie at 2:15 PM on March 24, 2011
posted by dobie at 2:15 PM on March 24, 2011
Scientific peer review, where the people who review your work are anonymized. I think this falls under practical issues, as removing anonymity would lead to less honest reviews and a lot of hurt feelings all around (though removing anonymity might also stop people from giving me 1-line reviews too).
posted by jasonhong at 2:15 PM on March 24, 2011 [4 favorites]
posted by jasonhong at 2:15 PM on March 24, 2011 [4 favorites]
Hospitals, especially mental ones and/or drug rehab facilities. If you ask if someone is a patient there, they will neither confirm nor deny.
posted by Melismata at 2:20 PM on March 24, 2011
posted by Melismata at 2:20 PM on March 24, 2011
Best answer: A lawyer defending someone in court does not want to know if the defendant is guilty, because it will hamper the defence effort: the lawyer is not allowed to lie to the court or the judge.
posted by londongeezer at 2:22 PM on March 24, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by londongeezer at 2:22 PM on March 24, 2011 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Both the patients and the doctors and other caregivers in a double-blind medical study should not know who is receiving the experimental drug, and who is receiving the placebo or comparator compound.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:24 PM on March 24, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:24 PM on March 24, 2011 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Genetic testing is bringing up a lot of these questions - Huntington's Disease is a great example (though by no means the only one) where there's a very real controversy over the appropriateness of pre-symptomatic testing and, potentially, having someone spend decades of healthy life with the foreknowledge that their body, and mind, will rapidly degrade while still quite young. Or, by contrast, knowing they're free of the risk and having a kind of survivor's guilt while their relatives endure one of the more horrific conditions the genetic lottery can bestow. Meanwhile there's no cure or meaningful treatment, so it's not unreasonable for someone to decide to be intentionally ignorant of their Huntington's status until, and unless, they develop symptoms.
posted by Tomorrowful at 2:24 PM on March 24, 2011
posted by Tomorrowful at 2:24 PM on March 24, 2011
There are all kinds of crimes that depend on knowingly or intentionally doing something. The intentional torts generally require either actual intent or knowledge to a substantial certainty that one's actions would cause injury.
However, willful blindness or willful ignorance is often considered equivalent to knowledge in criminal cases.
posted by jedicus at 2:29 PM on March 24, 2011
However, willful blindness or willful ignorance is often considered equivalent to knowledge in criminal cases.
posted by jedicus at 2:29 PM on March 24, 2011
The Stroop test is a way to evaluate whether or not someone speaks a particular language. The example use case for this is ferreting out spies: If you suspect someone is a Russian spy, you can administer the Stroop test. If they are a native Russian speaker, their reaction time will betray them.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 2:36 PM on March 24, 2011 [8 favorites]
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 2:36 PM on March 24, 2011 [8 favorites]
Double-blind scientific experiments - the subjects can't know whether they are in the control or the experimental group, in order to control for the placebo effect, and the experimenter can't know which subjects are in the control group and which in the experimental group - to avoid the Clever Hans effect, in addition to more intentional forms of bias
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:40 PM on March 24, 2011
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:40 PM on March 24, 2011
Many engineers are prohibited by their employers from reading patents due to "willful infringement".
posted by GuyZero at 2:42 PM on March 24, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by GuyZero at 2:42 PM on March 24, 2011 [1 favorite]
In many hiring situations, employers may want to preserve their ignorance of a candidate's membership in some groups - for example, if the employer doesn't know whether the candidate is gay, or a religious minority, etc, then the employer can't possibly be discriminating based on those group memberships.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:44 PM on March 24, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:44 PM on March 24, 2011 [2 favorites]
I'm particularly interested if a person has to protect his or her own lack of knowledge.
Don't eat the apple from the tree of knowledge.
posted by StickyCarpet at 2:44 PM on March 24, 2011
Don't eat the apple from the tree of knowledge.
posted by StickyCarpet at 2:44 PM on March 24, 2011
U.S. civil servants of some kinds may be prohibited by their employer from reading Wikileaks cables that are published in the press, since the government considers the cables to still be classified or secret and they want their employees to uphold their oath (or whatever form of obligation?) to not read classified info if they're not cleared for it.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:46 PM on March 24, 2011
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:46 PM on March 24, 2011
The Stroop test is a way to evaluate whether or not someone speaks a particular language. The example use case for this is ferreting out spies: If you suspect someone is a Russian spy, you can administer the Stroop test. If they are a native Russian speaker, their reaction time will betray them.
Um, or it will tell you that someone has neuropsychologically based sensory processing difficulties. I sure hope no one's ever been executed based on the results of a Stroop.
posted by so_gracefully at 2:46 PM on March 24, 2011 [2 favorites]
Um, or it will tell you that someone has neuropsychologically based sensory processing difficulties. I sure hope no one's ever been executed based on the results of a Stroop.
posted by so_gracefully at 2:46 PM on March 24, 2011 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I've heard of orchestra auditions that take place behind a sheet. The person making the selection can hear the audition but not see the person auditioning.
posted by Clambone at 2:48 PM on March 24, 2011 [6 favorites]
posted by Clambone at 2:48 PM on March 24, 2011 [6 favorites]
When preparing documents for families with children with disabilities, I will sometimes do not include the names of the proposed service providers in order to prevent that from being the basis for decisions about funding eligibility.
Don't homeowners sometimes need to not know the state of a building because they would legally be required to disclose that to a potential buyer and that wouldn't be in their best interests?
posted by kch at 2:48 PM on March 24, 2011
Don't homeowners sometimes need to not know the state of a building because they would legally be required to disclose that to a potential buyer and that wouldn't be in their best interests?
posted by kch at 2:48 PM on March 24, 2011
There's the whole notion of "need to know" in classified material. It can be very narrowly enforced, too - one of the first projects I had at my current job was to essentially pick an aircraft for a mission I wasn't allowed information on. "It has to carry x pounds, have y cfm of airflow for cooling, and z amp-hour generating capability. That's all I can tell you."
The US also sells equipment to foreign governments that they're not allowed to peak into, especially things like crypto. Input X here, get out Y there. If it breaks, send it back to us and we'll fix it for you. Don't open it! It's usually enforced by not providing tech publications, repair manuals, things like that. You get an instruction manual and instructions for installing and removing it, and that's it.
posted by backseatpilot at 2:55 PM on March 24, 2011
The US also sells equipment to foreign governments that they're not allowed to peak into, especially things like crypto. Input X here, get out Y there. If it breaks, send it back to us and we'll fix it for you. Don't open it! It's usually enforced by not providing tech publications, repair manuals, things like that. You get an instruction manual and instructions for installing and removing it, and that's it.
posted by backseatpilot at 2:55 PM on March 24, 2011
Blind dating?
posted by londongeezer at 2:56 PM on March 24, 2011
posted by londongeezer at 2:56 PM on March 24, 2011
Best answer: I've heard that naive art falls into this category, that an artist's ability to create a particular style can be contaminated by a knowledge of others' works.
posted by b33j at 2:58 PM on March 24, 2011
posted by b33j at 2:58 PM on March 24, 2011
If you use a glory hole (maybe nsfw description) presumably you don't want to know who's on the other side of the partition.
posted by londongeezer at 2:58 PM on March 24, 2011 [3 favorites]
posted by londongeezer at 2:58 PM on March 24, 2011 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Law enforcement will sometimes use "privilege teams" and "clean teams" when seizing and sorting through a batch of documents, some of which may be protected by attorney-client privilege. You can see an explanation of how one such team worked here (beginning on page 8).
posted by ewiar at 3:16 PM on March 24, 2011
posted by ewiar at 3:16 PM on March 24, 2011
In law enforcement the person showing the photos in an ID procedure cannot know who the suspect is.
posted by InkaLomax at 3:18 PM on March 24, 2011
posted by InkaLomax at 3:18 PM on March 24, 2011
In law enforcement the person showing the photos in an ID procedure cannot know who the suspect is.
Unfortunately, that's not a hard-and-fast rule, constitutional or otherwise. But it is, undoubtedly, the best practice.
posted by ewiar at 3:24 PM on March 24, 2011
Unfortunately, that's not a hard-and-fast rule, constitutional or otherwise. But it is, undoubtedly, the best practice.
posted by ewiar at 3:24 PM on March 24, 2011
Um, or it will tell you that someone has neuropsychologically based sensory processing difficulties. I sure hope no one's ever been executed based on the results of a Stroop.
My understanding is that the subject's reaction times are compared to his/her own performance in a known language. If you have sensory processing difficulties, your reaction times in the Russian test will be slow, but so will your English times.
What the test is looking for is a difference in performance between known and supposedly unknown language.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 3:24 PM on March 24, 2011
My understanding is that the subject's reaction times are compared to his/her own performance in a known language. If you have sensory processing difficulties, your reaction times in the Russian test will be slow, but so will your English times.
What the test is looking for is a difference in performance between known and supposedly unknown language.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 3:24 PM on March 24, 2011
Students enter only their ID number on examinations, not their names, in order to reduce marker bias. It makes it tricky when you recognise their handwriting or writing style though.
posted by robotot at 3:32 PM on March 24, 2011
posted by robotot at 3:32 PM on March 24, 2011
Best answer: I've heard of orchestra auditions that take place behind a sheet. The person making the selection can hear the audition but not see the person auditioning.
Oh yes: and some orchestras have the auditioners walk out onto the veiled stage in their stocking feet, so the committee can't hear if they are male or female (i.e., in dress shoes with heels).
posted by philokalia at 3:51 PM on March 24, 2011 [1 favorite]
Oh yes: and some orchestras have the auditioners walk out onto the veiled stage in their stocking feet, so the committee can't hear if they are male or female (i.e., in dress shoes with heels).
posted by philokalia at 3:51 PM on March 24, 2011 [1 favorite]
Black-box testing, where the software testers/QA team doesn't see the code, so that they test what it should do according to the specifications.
posted by clerestory at 4:03 PM on March 24, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by clerestory at 4:03 PM on March 24, 2011 [1 favorite]
"A lawyer defending someone in court does not want to know if the defendant is guilty, because it will hamper the defence effort: the lawyer is not allowed to lie to the court or the judge."
This is not true. A lawyer most definitely wants their client to be straight with them, especially if their client is guilty. Many friends and colleagues of mine have had trials blow up in court, months of preparation and thousands of dollars for nought, because their clients lied to them.
Why does it matter? It matters because having the most accurate version of "the truth" enables the lawyer to fully appreciate and weigh all the possibilities and options - and it's this knowledge that will enable the lawyer to give the best possible advice and be the best possible advocate for their client. Not telling your lawyer the truth is akin to putting blinders on your lawyer and then asking him/her to lead you through a storm. Not smart. And as a lawyer, the lesson you learn early on is, don't take anything your client says at face value.
Your second point is also untrue. As a lawyer, everything you know about your client's case is protected under solicitor-client privilege. This privilege is a cornerstone of our justice system... the whole thing would fall apart if lawyers could be compelled by the courts to testify against their own clients. In fact, disclosing incriminating evidence to the court without your client's express permission could be grounds for disbarment. I believe the only exception to this privilege is in the event that your client poses immediate danger to him/herself or others. For example, if your client tells you, "I'm going to murder my ex-wife tomorrow morning," then yes, even as your client's legal representative, you are duty bound to report this.
Now to answer OP's question, you already mentioned juries being examined for prior knowledge of the defendant, and being instructed not to go looking for information about the defendant. In a similar vein, sometimes a "trial within a trial" is held before the judge alone to determine the admissibility of evidence. If the judge decides that the relevance and reliability of the evidence is outweighed by the unfair prejudice that it may cause to the defendant, it's both legally and ethically necessary for the jury to not hear or see it.
posted by keep it under cover at 4:35 PM on March 24, 2011 [3 favorites]
This is not true. A lawyer most definitely wants their client to be straight with them, especially if their client is guilty. Many friends and colleagues of mine have had trials blow up in court, months of preparation and thousands of dollars for nought, because their clients lied to them.
Why does it matter? It matters because having the most accurate version of "the truth" enables the lawyer to fully appreciate and weigh all the possibilities and options - and it's this knowledge that will enable the lawyer to give the best possible advice and be the best possible advocate for their client. Not telling your lawyer the truth is akin to putting blinders on your lawyer and then asking him/her to lead you through a storm. Not smart. And as a lawyer, the lesson you learn early on is, don't take anything your client says at face value.
Your second point is also untrue. As a lawyer, everything you know about your client's case is protected under solicitor-client privilege. This privilege is a cornerstone of our justice system... the whole thing would fall apart if lawyers could be compelled by the courts to testify against their own clients. In fact, disclosing incriminating evidence to the court without your client's express permission could be grounds for disbarment. I believe the only exception to this privilege is in the event that your client poses immediate danger to him/herself or others. For example, if your client tells you, "I'm going to murder my ex-wife tomorrow morning," then yes, even as your client's legal representative, you are duty bound to report this.
Now to answer OP's question, you already mentioned juries being examined for prior knowledge of the defendant, and being instructed not to go looking for information about the defendant. In a similar vein, sometimes a "trial within a trial" is held before the judge alone to determine the admissibility of evidence. If the judge decides that the relevance and reliability of the evidence is outweighed by the unfair prejudice that it may cause to the defendant, it's both legally and ethically necessary for the jury to not hear or see it.
posted by keep it under cover at 4:35 PM on March 24, 2011 [3 favorites]
Closed adoptions.
posted by Houstonian at 4:41 PM on March 24, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Houstonian at 4:41 PM on March 24, 2011 [1 favorite]
In my job as a research coordinator, one of the things I do is oversee when the children in my longitudinal study are tested for autism. At certain ages, we want them to be tested by people who have no prior knowledge of these kids' research records - they can't know if we've had any previous concerns about the kids, or if the kids have an existing diagnosis, or if the kids' older siblings have autism. I ensure that the tester matched with each child is one who has not tested him/her previously, and I prepare special research files with all the information and paperwork needed so that the tester will not need to go into the permanent file and risk being exposed to this information.
Of course, usually after I've done this, the first thing the parents do before testing even starts is to blow the blinding by starting to talk about the child's speech therapy, or the older sibling's diagnosis, or the test scores from the last study visit.
Ultimately, we've decided it's more important for our families to feel comfortable talking about whatever they want to, then to maintain our blinding absolutely. But blind testing is the ideal, and I do what I can to maintain that.
posted by Stacey at 4:54 PM on March 24, 2011
Of course, usually after I've done this, the first thing the parents do before testing even starts is to blow the blinding by starting to talk about the child's speech therapy, or the older sibling's diagnosis, or the test scores from the last study visit.
Ultimately, we've decided it's more important for our families to feel comfortable talking about whatever they want to, then to maintain our blinding absolutely. But blind testing is the ideal, and I do what I can to maintain that.
posted by Stacey at 4:54 PM on March 24, 2011
Sorry, I must clarify something. londongeezer, I've mischaracterized your second point. You are correct that your lawyer is not allowed to lie to the court in that your lawyer is not allowed to knowingly present false evidence or mount a false defense, and your lawyer cannot allow you to commit perjury. But I would still argue that one should always, always give their lawyer the truth and allow the professional to figure out how best to approach the case, rather than tell half-truths and make sly omissions in an effort to shape the case yourself with only your layman's understanding of the law.
This blog post says it well.
posted by keep it under cover at 5:00 PM on March 24, 2011
This blog post says it well.
posted by keep it under cover at 5:00 PM on March 24, 2011
Executions? I've heard that firing squads often load one of the guns with a fake bullet, and electric chairs have two operators and two buttons (one a decoy) so that the people carrying out the execution will never really know if they fired the killing shot or pressed the lethal button, to help alleviate feelings of guilt and regret.
posted by castlebravo at 5:01 PM on March 24, 2011
posted by castlebravo at 5:01 PM on March 24, 2011
Interesting here is that most of these answers are situations where the people who are purposefully ignorant are going along with it for a greater purpose.
I'm particularly interested if a person has to protect his or her own lack of knowledge.
If their lack of knowledge is on purpose toward some greater good, then yes, they do. At least to the extent they agreed to keep themselves ignorant.
Don't homeowners sometimes need to not know the state of a building because they would legally be required to disclose that to a potential buyer and that wouldn't be in their best interests?
That is a perversion of the rule, just like the previously de-bunked theory that lawyers don't want to know if their client is guilty or not. A homeowner who purposefully doesn't learn something so they will be clear of disclosure is doing it to keep themselves out of trouble. It is like knowledge laundering. They are taking steps to un-know something.
In other words, it is good when you are doing it to protect someone else. It is bad when you are doing it to screw someone else.
posted by gjc at 5:30 PM on March 24, 2011
I'm particularly interested if a person has to protect his or her own lack of knowledge.
If their lack of knowledge is on purpose toward some greater good, then yes, they do. At least to the extent they agreed to keep themselves ignorant.
Don't homeowners sometimes need to not know the state of a building because they would legally be required to disclose that to a potential buyer and that wouldn't be in their best interests?
That is a perversion of the rule, just like the previously de-bunked theory that lawyers don't want to know if their client is guilty or not. A homeowner who purposefully doesn't learn something so they will be clear of disclosure is doing it to keep themselves out of trouble. It is like knowledge laundering. They are taking steps to un-know something.
In other words, it is good when you are doing it to protect someone else. It is bad when you are doing it to screw someone else.
posted by gjc at 5:30 PM on March 24, 2011
A lawyer defending someone in court does not want to know if the defendant is guilty, because it will hamper the defence effort: the lawyer is not allowed to lie to the court or the judge.
posted by londongeezer at 2:22 PM on March 24 [1 favorite +] [!]
This isn't true, for all the reasons "keep it under cover" gives. Also, as criminal defense attorneys, whether someone is guilty or not guilty isn't up to us or our clients, but the fact finder. A client may say to me in confidence, "yeah I shot that guy" but that alone doesn't make the client guilty. Furthermore, we would not ever be required to say "my client didn't shoot that guy" but rather "the State has failed to meet its burden of proving that my client shot that guy." Or, "I submit that the evidence simply does not show that my client shot that guy." Those statements are not "code" for "yeah my client did it," but they are simply the way we are supposed to argue. Lawyers are supposed to walk a fine line between advocating zealously for a client, and not arguing for their personal opinion about the evidence.
posted by jayder at 5:52 PM on March 24, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by londongeezer at 2:22 PM on March 24 [1 favorite +] [!]
This isn't true, for all the reasons "keep it under cover" gives. Also, as criminal defense attorneys, whether someone is guilty or not guilty isn't up to us or our clients, but the fact finder. A client may say to me in confidence, "yeah I shot that guy" but that alone doesn't make the client guilty. Furthermore, we would not ever be required to say "my client didn't shoot that guy" but rather "the State has failed to meet its burden of proving that my client shot that guy." Or, "I submit that the evidence simply does not show that my client shot that guy." Those statements are not "code" for "yeah my client did it," but they are simply the way we are supposed to argue. Lawyers are supposed to walk a fine line between advocating zealously for a client, and not arguing for their personal opinion about the evidence.
posted by jayder at 5:52 PM on March 24, 2011 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Psychologists often mislead the human subjects of their experiments because their awareness of what is being investigated could spoil the results.
Since you mentioned linguists, it's worth noting that they sometimes do the same thing. In a lot of studies, you don't want the subjects to be thinking about how they're using their speech, because they might consciously (or sub-consciously) change it. You want what is most natural.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:28 PM on March 24, 2011
Since you mentioned linguists, it's worth noting that they sometimes do the same thing. In a lot of studies, you don't want the subjects to be thinking about how they're using their speech, because they might consciously (or sub-consciously) change it. You want what is most natural.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:28 PM on March 24, 2011
It's often the case that government needs some information in order to formulate a policy or to write a regulation, like the sales figures of a sector of businesses or their emissions of potential toxins. Businesses almost never want to give that sort of information out; it's commercially sensitive, horrible publicity or potentially legally damaging. Fortunately, to write the regulation or to develop a research report, it often isn't necessary to know exact details for each reporting company, but only averages and other statistics.
It's common in these cases to designate a very few, even one employee to handle the data and produce the statistics, which can then be made public without hurting the original companies. The trusted individual or team needs to have fairly high security clearance to handle commercial secrets, similar to that required for operational people in the military.
Similar protections are used when handling individual confidential data too. Census, tax and health data all have high needs for data protection, but likewise need processing and are sometimes used for policy or research reasons. The people who do the processing and analyses have to work under secrecy.
posted by bonehead at 10:34 PM on March 24, 2011
It's common in these cases to designate a very few, even one employee to handle the data and produce the statistics, which can then be made public without hurting the original companies. The trusted individual or team needs to have fairly high security clearance to handle commercial secrets, similar to that required for operational people in the military.
Similar protections are used when handling individual confidential data too. Census, tax and health data all have high needs for data protection, but likewise need processing and are sometimes used for policy or research reasons. The people who do the processing and analyses have to work under secrecy.
posted by bonehead at 10:34 PM on March 24, 2011
At the drug testing lab I worked at, all samples were assigned codes in such a way that no one (except the manager) who was performing the tests knew any information about where the samples came from, and no one (same caveat) who knew where the samples came from got any information about the results of the tests.
posted by solotoro at 3:23 AM on March 25, 2011
posted by solotoro at 3:23 AM on March 25, 2011
In the jurying process for arts grants, the expectation is often (not always) that a panelist will sit out from the evaluation of a particular artist's work when s/he has a significant personal connection with the artist or a direct personal stake in the artist's success.
This is also sometimes true for panels where the submission is supposed to be blind -- where the work samples come to the panel without the artist's name attached. In that case you ideally step back if you recognize an artist because you recognize one of the work samples from past exposure to it somewhere.
Of course there are plenty of grey-area situations and judgment calls here. And a funny moment was the point in one panel where all three of us initially requested to step back because we ALL knew the artist to some degree. (That was solved by the two people who didn't have a clear/direct relationship stepping back up. :))
posted by kalapierson at 9:00 AM on March 25, 2011
This is also sometimes true for panels where the submission is supposed to be blind -- where the work samples come to the panel without the artist's name attached. In that case you ideally step back if you recognize an artist because you recognize one of the work samples from past exposure to it somewhere.
Of course there are plenty of grey-area situations and judgment calls here. And a funny moment was the point in one panel where all three of us initially requested to step back because we ALL knew the artist to some degree. (That was solved by the two people who didn't have a clear/direct relationship stepping back up. :))
posted by kalapierson at 9:00 AM on March 25, 2011
Best answer: (And yes: all major orchestras in the U.S. now have only blind auditions.)
posted by kalapierson at 9:05 AM on March 25, 2011
posted by kalapierson at 9:05 AM on March 25, 2011
Jurors are routinely reminded not to discuss the case with others, and not to research the case on their own. The fact-finding conclusions must be drawn on the evidence presented in the trial rather than independent investigations or discussions.
posted by Jezebella at 6:00 PM on March 27, 2011
posted by Jezebella at 6:00 PM on March 27, 2011
A couple more examples from the legal field --
(1) Often you will not want your witnesses to see some document that you have, because if the witness sees it, it would then be something you would be required to disclose to the other side.
For example, in a complex case, attorneys may prepare summaries of the evidence, or summaries of how they expect a certain witness to testify. Such summaries may provide valuable insight into your strategy in the case. Showing such summaries to a lay witness would arguably taint or color their testimony, and thus would call into question whether their testimony is actually the result of personal knowledge (and the document would arguably be discoverable by your adversary, meaning you'd have to turn it over to them if you call the witness at trial). For an expert witness, the document would be discoverable as something the expert consulted in forming his or her opinion.
(2) In criminal law, a witness may not be able to identify your client. I often have hearings where I request that the defendant be seated in the gallery (audience area) until the witness identifies them. If the prosecutor shows the witness a photo of my client prior to trial, and I get the witness to admit that, I will use that to get the case thrown out, based on tainted identification.
posted by jayder at 6:39 PM on March 27, 2011
(1) Often you will not want your witnesses to see some document that you have, because if the witness sees it, it would then be something you would be required to disclose to the other side.
For example, in a complex case, attorneys may prepare summaries of the evidence, or summaries of how they expect a certain witness to testify. Such summaries may provide valuable insight into your strategy in the case. Showing such summaries to a lay witness would arguably taint or color their testimony, and thus would call into question whether their testimony is actually the result of personal knowledge (and the document would arguably be discoverable by your adversary, meaning you'd have to turn it over to them if you call the witness at trial). For an expert witness, the document would be discoverable as something the expert consulted in forming his or her opinion.
(2) In criminal law, a witness may not be able to identify your client. I often have hearings where I request that the defendant be seated in the gallery (audience area) until the witness identifies them. If the prosecutor shows the witness a photo of my client prior to trial, and I get the witness to admit that, I will use that to get the case thrown out, based on tainted identification.
posted by jayder at 6:39 PM on March 27, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by teraflop at 2:09 PM on March 24, 2011 [2 favorites]