It may be used to prepare him to give the desired answers to the questions about to be put to him the examiner, while he pretends ignorance and is asking for information is, in reality, giving instead of receiving it.Īccording to Taylor "A Leading question, in other words, is one which suggests to the witness the answer desired or which embodying a material fact, admits of a conclusive answer by a simple negative or affirmative." It is clear that under this form every sort of information may be conveyed to the witness in disguise. Section 141 of the Indian Evidence Act 1872 defines 'Leading Questions' as, “Any questions suggesting the answer which the person putting it wishes or expects to receive is called a leading question."īentham defines leading questions as," A question is a leading one, when it indicates to the witness the real or supposed fact which the examiner expects and desires to have confirmed by the answer.ī) Do you reside in such and such a place?Ĭ) Are you not in service of such and such person?ĭ) Have you not lived with him for so many years?Į) Did you see him enter X's office and take a file? As expected by the person asked the same, any questions which leads to answer, or a question which is pregnant with the answer. The expression "Leading Questions" literally means a question which itself suggest answer. Leading Questions have been defined under section 141 of the Indian Evidence Act 1872. Section 142 and Section 143 provides circumstances under which the leading Questions may be asked or may not be asked. It can be helpful for parents or friends to ask people slightly leading questions if trying to find out how someone is really feeling about something upsetting, or where they are going or have been, rather than dancing around a subject, trying to get someone to open up.Section 141 to Section 143 of Chapter -X, Part III of the Indian Evidence Act 1872 deals with leading questions. On the other hand, they can be very valuable to other people, even if they are not the most neutral thing. Leading questions can be a bad thing in terms of a courtroom setting, getting the questioner into a lot of trouble. However, after awhile you get better at switching it around if people catch you. I was on a mock trial team for a year, and it was hard to avoid leading questions in a cross examination. Leading questions are easier to fall into than you might think. If you add leading questions to the component it is easy to understand how someone could be wrongfully convicted of a crime. There have been numerous psychological studies that have demonstrated the bias in eyewitness testimony and the problem with eyewitness memory in general. Sapphire12 - I agree that it is easy to suggest leading questions but it can be problematic in a trial. Loftus stated that people always have preconceived notions when recalling events and the often color in the details which is why leading questions are dangerous because they not only affect the person on the witness stand, but they also affect the jury who is hearing this biased testimony. Here the use of the word crashed is in a form of a leading word because it is creating assumptions in the mind of the subjects that are not true. The researchers asked the first group how fast the car was going when it crashed into stop sign.Īlthough the car was idle in the original picture and the subjects actually saw a yield sign many stated that the car had such an impact that the windshield shattered. The other group was shown the same car but this time there was a stop sign. One group was shown a stop sign while a second group was shown a yield sign and a car at a corner. She had two groups of participants that were shown material that was different than how it was verbally described. I know that in the 1970’s a psychologist named Elizabeth Loftus created an eyewitness testimony study. The jury was also told about the convicted man’s prior criminal history and although it did not have anything to do with the case at hand, the leading testimony tainted the jury and convicted an innocent man to life in prison. I was amazed that someone could be wrongfully convicted like that, but even the victim made a mistake. His wife was able to get him released because the actual perpetrator was 5’7” tall. The victim was showed the picture of the convicted man and told investigators that he was the one that pulled the gun on him despite the fact that he had told investigators that the suspect was 5’10” when the convicted man was actually 6’3”. I saw a case on television in which a man was wrongly convicted of an attempted robbery.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |