Explain how hypothetical questions can be used to ensure that you as a witness are basing your opinion on facts expected to be supported by evidence.
What will be an ideal response?
ANSWER: The law requires that an expert who doesn’t have personal knowledge about the system or the occurrence must state opinions by response to hypothetical questions, which ask the expert witness to express an opinion based on hypothetical facts without referring to a particular system or situation. In this regard, you as a forensics investigator (an expert witness) differ from an ordinary witness. You didn’t see or hear the incident in dispute; you’re giving evidence as an opinion based on professional knowledge and experience, even if you might never have seen the system, data, or scene.
Although the rules of evidence have relaxed requirements on the way in which an expert renders an opinion, structuring hypothetical questions for your own use helps ensure that you’re basing your opinion on facts expected to be supported by evidence. State the facts needed to answer the question, and don’t include any unnecessary facts. You might want to address alternative facts, however, if they allow your opinion to remain the same. The expression “alternative facts” might seem contradictory, but it simply means competing facts. In a civil case, if there weren’t alternative possible facts, the case would not be at trial; it would have been decided at summary judgment.
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What will be an ideal response?
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What will be an ideal response?