Letter to the Author

• Publication year: 2011
• Pages: 93
• Citation: Vol. 40 No. 11 Pg. 93

40 Colo.Law. 93 Colorado Bar Journal 2011.

2011, November, Pg. 93. Letter to the Author

The Colorado Lawyer
November 2011
Vol. 40, No. 11 [Page 93]

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Letter to the Author

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Point/Counterpoint:

"Allowing Real-Time Video Testimony in Court

Hello, Fred. I very much enjoyed your debate with Jery Payne in the August issue of The Colorado Lawyer on the use of video testimony in judicial proceedings.(fn1) The lesson on the niceties of Tanugan law from Star Trek was very useful.

In addition, I am a firm believer in the usefulness of video testimony. Having been an administrative law judge and arbitrator for more than twenty-five years, I heard many cases in which credibility of witnesses was an issue. With all due respect to Dr. Ekman, I believe that trial judges and jurors do not have the ability to look a witness in the face and tell whether he or she is lying. We are not psychologists or persons otherwise trained in identifying "micro expressions" or "tells." I have found that reliable methods of testing credibility come from more objective sources: inconsistent prior statements, testimony describing actions that just doesn't pass the smell test of reasonable or expected behavior under the circumstances, inconsistencies with otherwise uncontested facts, and so forth. When I was an administrative law judge, I reviewed surveys of judges conducted by more than one professor of psychology in which a large majority of judges agreed with the conclusion that merely...