What does it mean to impeach a witness? To rehabilitate a witness? Give three examples of impeachment and appropriate ways to rehabilitate a witness who has been impeached by the methods you describe
What will be an ideal response?
Impeaching a witness means that the opposing side is attempting to convince the jury that the witness lacks credibility. Impeachment is usually done during cross examination; sometimes the judge will allow the attorney to call another witness to testify as part of impeachment. Having a "character witness" testify about a person's reputation for honesty falls in this category.
Examples of things that can be used to impeach [Note: question calls for three]:
• bias or prejudice – showing that the witness is a personal friend of the defendant
• prior felony conviction
• immoral acts and uncharged crimes – showing that the witness has committed a number of thefts that were never reported to the police
• prior inconsistent statements – statement made to police at the crime scene is inconsistent with what witness said while testifying
• inability to observe what person testified about – witness has very poor eyesight
• reputation – witness has reputation as a liar
Rehabilitation means restoring the credibility of the witness. This is usually done during re-direct. The attorney who called the witness hopes to show the jury that the testimony during cross-examination did not diminish the credibility of the witness.
Examples of ways to rehabilitate witnesses who were impeached by the tactics described above:
• bias or prejudice – showing that the witness is being objective despite friendship
• prior felony conviction - conviction occurred a long time ago and there have been no other conviction since then
• immoral acts and uncharged crimes – showing that the witness became remorseful and repaid all the money
• prior inconsistent statements – statement made to police were made while witness was in shock and did not understand the questions
• inability to observe what person testified about – witness wears contact lenses and could see 20/20 at the time in question
• reputation – the reputation witness that said the witness was a liar has a very poor reputations for honesty
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