How Can A Criminal Defense Attorney Discredit A Witness Testimony Who Is Lying?
It happens all the time that witnesses get on the stand or alleged victims get on the stand, and they claim something that is just simply not true. I have my clients whisper to me at the counsel table, “They're lying,” and, as a criminal defense attorney, I can't just say you're lying, aren't you, because that person is going to say, I'm not lying; I'm telling the truth.
So, there have to be other ways to discredit a witness's testimony to show that they're not telling the truth, and the way you do that is to attack their credibility as a witness. You question them about something they've said that has turned out not to be true, inconsistent statements they made, and a potential motive for them to lie.
If somebody has told a lie in one circumstance, you can challenge them in your case and say, wait a minute, you told a lie here. Why should we believe you? What happens a lot in criminal cases is that the police make many different statements.
Inconsistent Statements by a Witness
The arresting officer takes a statement, the detectives take a statement, and the prosecutors take a statement, and often, different statements are made, and sometimes, inconsistent statements by the same witness or by the same victim are made.
That's the type of stuff that can win criminal cases. That's the type of stuff where you can challenge a witness. You can say, wait a minute, at the preliminary hearing, you made this statement.
At the original arrest of the defendant, at the scene when you talked to the police, you made this statement. These two statements are completely different. They cannot stand.
So, now you're going to argue, and you're going to challenge. You're going to say if you don't have this story right and tell inconsistent versions of what happened, we can't trust you. And if we can't trust you as a witness, we can't trust anything that you say, and this criminal case cannot stand against our client.
So, there are a lot of different ways to discredit a witness. You're going to do it through the evidence that's available usually. You're going to look at the evidence and their statements, and another way to discredit them is through other witnesses.
Discredit a Witness Using Other Witnesses
There might be another witness who said something different than what the alleged victim is saying, and you can then call that witness and put them on the witness stand. Sometimes, the prosecutors will call those witnesses, and you can use their statements to challenge the alleged victim. That's the best when there are a couple of different witnesses, and they're saying something different as it relates to a material fact in the case.
So, again, the way to discredit a witness is to bring up their prior inconsistent statements. The way to discredit a witness is to call other witness or cross-examine other witnesses bring up key points about your main witness's testimony, and impeach them through over witness statements.
Also, what's called intrinsic impeachment is available. Basically, that means bringing in outsiders to challenge their statements and version of events. And, of course, you can contact a criminal defendant in a case and use that criminal defendant to challenge and impeach a witness.
The criminal defendant can say no, that's not what happened. That's not the true version of events. That's not the version of events that's fair under the circumstances. That's another way to attack or impeach a witness's statement.
Discredit a Witness Through Circumstances
Also, you can attack a witness's statement based on the circumstances. I recently had a case. Someone claimed that my client was attacking them, and they locked themselves in a room.
My client kicked and broke a door at the bottom, and all the pieces shattered everywhere. We have pictures of the house inside, and you look at all the pieces and broken stuff on the opposite side of the door.
On the side of the door where my client would have been. So, once my client told me that she was the one who shattered the door, it became clear that there was no way that my client shattered the door; it was her who broke the door.
The jury will start scratching their heads and say somebody's not telling the truth. I can see evidence that this alleged victim is lying.
Once you get that chink in the witness's armor about an important thing, now you can use that to start taking the prosecutor's case apart, to start discrediting the witness to show the witness is not reliable, and get that case dismissed.