[The Medical Examiner Dr.] Bao is reading his answers off personal notes. "I typed out potential answers to your potential questions." West asks to see the notes, but Bao replied "I'd rather you not." Judge Nelson tells him both sides' attorneys are entitled to view his notes.And:
The defense attorneys grin while reviewing Bao's notes. From the witness stand, the medical examiner asks "Is there something funny there?"Bao looked very nervous to me. He protested that he'd written these notes by himself, on his own time, but after he referred to them while testifying, the defense lawyers now get to look at everything, perhaps including notes about the doctor's discussions with the prosecutor.
Bao was the state's last witness, this Friday afternoon, and now things seem quite chaotic.
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 202 of 202"the two brothers were close and looked similar."
A Reasonable Man on how they all look alike.
"In fact his brother...the best estimator of his likely path."
No, dumbass. TRAYVON MARTIN is the best estimator of his likely path.
Getting back to the ME and his notes, testifying directly from notes would be hearsay because it would be an out of court statement (the notes) introduced to prove the point asserted. Testimony is supposed to be first hand. But what is allowable is for the witness to refresh his memory from his notes. This can mean that the witness stops testifying, refreshes his memory, puts down or gives up the document, and restarts his testimony. Repeat as necessary. But when he is doing so, the attorneys are entitled to see the document(s) he is using to refresh his memory. In reality though, this is typically simplified by giving the attorneys the documents and just allowing the witness to testify. They can then pick apart discrepancies, etc. in cross examination.
Years ago I used this a couple of times when dealing with some cops on the stand. In minor cases, esp. Traffic cases, they testify almost completely from their notes. In traffic cases, they often don't even bother reading their notes until they are on the stand. Then they make it sound like they are testifying from memory. They can't remember what happened months, or even years, before in routine cases. What was the weather like? How was the visibility? Etc. And, yet, they can't testify as to the contents of their notes (because that would be hearsay), but just to what they remember.
Actually humorous when I did it. Cop picks up his notes and starts to testify. I objected as hearsay. Went through the cop testifying for a bit, then needing his notes to refresh. Handed his noes, he reviews for a bit, then gave them up and testified some more. Repeated a couple of times, which showed what he remembered and what he was getting from his notes. It worked for me because the cop didn't prep for trial. Shouldn't work for a murder case because all the professional witnesses should have been well enough prepped with their notes to mostly not need them. Interesting that the ME wasn't that well prepared.
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