Tobacco On Trial

In a case that will be lasting 1/2 year already, certain economies have been instituted. One is the method of providing written Direct Testimonies of witnesses.

The Direct Testimonies of DOJ witnesses have been compiled with the witnesses themselves, but is essentially written by the DOJ. The resulting document, which the witness later examines and signs off on, is then accepted in the court record as if the witness gave it on the stand.

But this method becomes a huge problem in the case of Adverse Witnesses, with whom the DOJ has little contact. DOJ may make up its Direct Testimony document based on previous answers in other trials.

Two such DTs, Northrip’s and Stevens’, were posted on the DOJ before the nature of this problem was recognized.

They have since been radically “corrected” by the witnesses. But, according to one lawyer, the originals are being accepted and quoted by the media “in Australia.”

It appears the government website may take _months_ to remove these documents. They should NOT be relied on whatsoever by downloaders as the true testimony of these witnesses.

Steps have been taken to prevent this from occurring in the future.

We will remove the links from this site. The new testimonies will include the old versions, PLUS the witnesses’ amendments/changes, so the historical record will remain.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 7th, 2004 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Testimonies, Documents, Notes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.