Latest news with #cross-examination
Malay Mail
5 days ago
- Malay Mail
‘Shut the gates': Singapore judge criticises victim-blaming tactics in sexual offence cases
SINGAPORE, July 21 — High Court Judge Vincent Hoong criticised inappropriate cross-examination tactics during sexual offense trials in Singapore, citing examples where lawyers made degrading suggestions to victims, including telling a rape victim's mother she 'could have easily avoided' assault by crossing her legs. In another disturbing case Hoong noted, a defence lawyer inappropriately stared at a molestation victim's breasts and asked her to stand up to demonstrate potential 'motive' for the assault based on her clothing, The Straits Times reported. Hoong, who also serves as presiding judge of the State Courts, delivered these remarks during a keynote address to Singapore Academy of Law members at a private event held on July 2, with the speech subsequently published on the Singapore Courts website. The judge said that courtrooms should not be battlegrounds and witness stands should not serve as arenas for humiliation, stating there is neither honour in extracting testimony through degradation nor skill in exploiting witnesses' emotional vulnerability. This judicial guidance follows Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon's December 2024 emphasis on judges taking more active supervisory roles in managing sexual offence cases, particularly regarding how complainants give evidence. New measures introduced in January include pretrial checklists designed to identify contentious issues, enabling judges to prevent irrelevant questioning during trials. Hoong acknowledged that while robust cross-examination within proper bounds remains essential for fair defence representation, inappropriate questioning can become traumatising without proper sensitivity. The judge specifically condemned questions that reinforce outdated victim-blaming notions, such as expectations that victims should physically resist attackers or immediately report crimes, calling such approaches gratuitously harmful and irrelevant. Defence lawyer Luo Ling Ling, who represents clients accused of sexual offenses, supports protecting victims while vigorously defending clients, sharing her experience of learning to balance tough questioning with respectful tone after witnessing a victim's emotional breakdown during cross-examination. Luo said that while she would still ask necessary challenging questions in similar cases, she would now employ a gentler approach after realising the impact of her questioning style on a young victim who was testifying via camera.
CTV News
17-07-2025
- CTV News
U.S. Justice Department wants no prison time for ex-officer convicted in Breonna Taylor raid
Former Louisville Police officer Brett Hankison talks about seeing a subject in a firing stance in the apartment as he is cross-examined in Louisville, Ky., Wednesday, March 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, Pool)
ABC News
13-06-2025
- ABC News
The moments from Erin Patterson's evidence that didn't make headlines
In a courtroom cross-examination, the questions largely flow one way. A lawyer for the defence or prosecution gets the chance to ask questions of the other side's witness, to test the evidence they have given to the court. It was a principle crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC was quick to highlight to accused killer Erin Patterson this week, as they locked horns over evidence drawn from a computer in Ms Patterson's home. Dr Rogers had put to Ms Patterson that she'd used her computer in May 2022 to visit iNaturalist website pages containing information about death cap mushrooms. The court was shown a log of individual URL visits prosecutors said were made on Ms Patterson's PC over a period of time. Dr Rogers's questioning turned to the "visit count" recorded in the log for one particular URL. Dr Rogers: You had visited this URL once before on this device, correct? Ms Patterson: Yes, correct, and I believe it was two seconds earlier. Dr Rogers: I suggest you're wrong about that; correct or incorrect? Ms Patterson: Ah, I'm correct. A short time later, the prosecutor indicated she would move on from the exhibit of URLs visited by the PC. Dr Rogers: Now I'm moving on to a different topic. Ms Patterson: Before you do, Dr Rogers, within this record is that second [website] visit … that I was talking about, 7:23:16, 7:23:18. Dr Rogers: Ms Patterson, I am the person who asks the questions. If there's something that needs to be clarified in re-examination, then your barrister will do so. Ms Patterson: No problem. In her evidence, Ms Patterson also told Dr Rogers she did not recall if it was her who was operating the computer when it visited the page. "Somebody did, and that somebody could have been me," she told the prosecutor. The exchange was not the only one where Ms Patterson pointed out details she believed to be incorrect. One example was when she was given a date in 2023 with the incorrect day of the week: Dr Rogers: [Mobile phone tower expert Matthew Sorrell's] evidence was: "On Monday, 28th of April 2023, the mobile service records for you indicate a possible visit to the Loch township." Ms Patterson: I'm really sorry, Dr Rogers, could you just repeat the date? ... I just lost focus. Dr Rogers: On Monday, 28 April … his evidence was: "The mobile service records for you indicate a possible visit to the Loch township." Ms Patterson: I don't mean to be argumentative, but I think the 28th of April was a Friday. The only reason I remember that, is [my daughter] had two ballets on the 29th and 30th of April and they were that weekend. Dr Rogers: Ok, I'll change it Ms Patterson: Ok. It was an exchange Dr Rogers did not forget, referencing it later that day as she sought to inject a moment of levity into the hours-long examination. Dr Rogers: I better check with you. Monday, 22 May, it's a Monday? Ms Patterson: I don't know about that one. Dr Rogers: It's a joke. It's a joke. I take out the 'Monday'. Throughout her cross-examination, Ms Patterson was focused on Dr Rogers, blinking rapidly and speaking with a level voice as she rejected the suggestion her actions after the lunch were those of a guilty woman covering her tracks. She repeatedly denied to the Supreme Court jury that she was guilty of the murder of three in-laws and the attempted murder of a fourth. She rotated through outfits which have been widely described in media reports and sketches: a paisley-coloured top, a dark-coloured top with white polka dots and a pink shirt. The 50-year-old kept her glasses in her hands during her hours on the stand, so they were ready if she was taken to one of the many trial exhibits on the computer monitor before her. Her questioner, Dr Rogers, kept a brisk pace as she sought to make the most of the opportunity to ask questions of the accused. At times, responses became more personal as Dr Rogers suggested the evidence of Ms Patterson strained credibility. When questioning turned to the Monday after the Saturday lunch, Ms Patterson was asked about her movements after she discharged herself from Leongatha Hospital against medical advice. The court heard she arrived about 8am that day but left about 10 minutes later, before returning after a roughly 90-minute absence. Ms Patterson told the jury she had needed that time to see to things like putting the lambs away to protect them from foxes and packing her daughter's ballet bag, before she could be admitted to hospital for full treatment. She told the court this week that after returning home she also laid down "for a while". Dr Rogers: How long did you lie down for? Ms Patterson: I don't know. Dr Rogers: That's untrue, isn't it? … It's untrue that you lay down? Ms Patterson: No. Dr Rogers: Surely that's the last thing you would do in these circumstances? Ms Patterson: It might be the last thing you'd do, but it was something I did. Dr Rogers: After you'd been told by medical staff that you had potentially ingested a life-threatening poison, isn't it the last thing that you would do, is to lie down in those circumstances? Ms Patterson: They didn't tell me it was life-threatening. By any measure, Ms Patterson's time in the witness box was a lengthy one, stretching over eight days of hearings. And in a case where the complex brief of evidence has ranged from computer and mobile phone data to the science of differentiating fungi, moments have often been needed by all of the parties conducting the trial to double-check the facts on record. But by the end of the week, the time for questioning Ms Patterson was over, and the evidence phase of the trial drew to a close. Now the prosecution and defence will trawl through the hours of transcripts and reams of documents as they prepare to deliver their final arguments in one of Australia's most closely watched trials in years.
Fox News
11-06-2025
- Fox News
Special prosecutor grills Karen Read's final witness, turning up the heat on his credibility
Cross-examination is underway of Karen Read's final witness - a crash reconstructionist and biomechanical engineer who testified that John O'Keefe's injuries were inconsistent with being struck by the defendant's SUV as alleged by prosecutors. The witness is Dr. Andrew Rentschler, the second expert from a firm called ARCCA to take the stand. Special prosecutor Hank Brennan tried repeatedly to have the firm's findings limited or withheld completely in the case. Using Rentschler's own words, Brennan asked him if "facts matter." "You said it many, many times, 'facts matter,' Isn't that correct?" Brennan asked. "It was details," Rentschler said. "But facts matter too." Brennan pressed Renstchler on details about his testimony under direct questioning from defense lawyer Alan Jackson earlier in the day, when he said O'Keefe's remains were found between 10 and 20 feet from the side of the road. Then he showed a still image from police dashcam video of the initial response, showing witnesses near the side of the road, presumably over O'Keefe's remains. "Details matter, don't they?" Brennan asked. Brennan has accused ARCCA of destroying text messages with the defense they were ordered to give to prosecutors as well as slow-walking discovery disclosures. He also grilled Rentschler on whether he considered broken pieces of taillight in the yard where O'Keefe was found dead. He said he hadn't. "That wasn't part of my analysis," he testified. He also hadn't considered how O'Keefe's hat wound up on the ground or the taillight fragments recovered from his clothes. Rentschler's testimony began Tuesday and kicked off again Wednesday morning with a series of objections from Brennan that led Judge Beverly Cannone to interrupt the witness after he told jurors he had three children and wished his 10-year-old a happy birthday. "So I was going to say I have three kids, a 9-year-old who's actually turning 10 today -- happy birthday Kai -- and I have two older ones," Rentschler began. "All right, I'm going to, we're going to stop this -- [use] another example," said Judge Beverly Cannone after an objection from special prosecutor Hank Brennan. Read is accused of mowing down O'Keefe after a night of drinking and leaving him to die as she went to his house and left him raging voicemails as his niece and nephew slept in the home. He had taken them in after they were orphaned when his sister and brother-in-law died within months of one another. "Was it appropriate? I think it's his personality," said David Gelman, a Philadelphia-area defense attorney and former prosecutor who is following the trial. "It may have missed the mark, but it's a breath of fresh air since experts are usually boring." Grace Edwards, a Massachusetts trial lawyer who is also following the case, said the judge likely Rentschler off because narrative answers can distract from the facts of the case. "The story can lead to a long answer that could be potentially off-topic or the jury could take from it something else that was not intended, like 'Happy Birthday,' and only remember that part," she told Fox News Digital. "The judge wanted the witness refocused to specific questions with focused answers rather than potentially rambling about his three kids." Rentschler insisted that "details matter" repeatedly as he explained the basics of the scientific method and took issue with another expert report from the firm Aperture, retained by the prosecution. Aperture labeled the injuries to O'Keefe's arm "lacerations," he said -- a term that he testified contradicts the findings of the official autopsy, which described them as "superficial abrasions." GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUB "The superficial abrasions and abrasions occur when there's rubbing or scraping of the skin, and it just rubs away the top layer, the epidermis of the skin," he testified. "Now, a laceration is an actual a jagged, ripping or tearing of the skin which gets down through the epidermis into the dermis. So abrasions take much less force. They're less severe than what a laceration actually is." Based on his testing, he said that he ruled out an impact with Read's 2021 Lexus LX 570 SUV and O'Keefe's arm as the cause of those injuries. "They're inconsistent with striking the tail light or being produced as a result of contact with the tail light," he testified. The prosecution claims that these minor injuries came from an impact with Read's broken taillight after she allegedly drove into him on Jan. 29, 2022 and left him to die on the ground in the snow. The defense denies a collision and has claimed the injuries came from dog teeth and claws. Aperture's Dr. Judson Welcher testified earlier, based on digital forensics of phone and vehicle data, that Read's SUV reversed at 75% throttle right before O'Keefe's last conscious interaction with his cellphone.
CNN
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Live updates: Sean ‘Diddy' Combs' trial continues with testimony from ‘Jane'
Update: Date: 19 min ago Title: Catch up on what Jane said in court yesterday Content: The cross-examination of 'Jane,' one of Sean 'Diddy' Combs' accusers who is testifying under a pseudonym, continued yesterday afternoon. If you're just catching up now, here's a recap about what she said yesterday:
