Words banned in court/Verbotene Wörter im Gerichtssaal
am 19.06.2008 von http://transblawg.eu
An article of 16 June 2008 by Tresa Baldas in the National Law Journal, Courts Putting Hot-Button Words on Ice, reports that words such as rape and victim are being banned by judges because they prejudice defendants.
A steadily increasing number of courts across the United States are prohibiting witnesses and victims from uttering certain words in front of a jury, banning everything from the words rape to victim to crime scene.
Prosecutors and victims rights advocates nationwide claim the courts are going too far in trying to cleanse witness testimony, all to protect a defendants right to a fair trial. Concerns and fears over language restrictions have been percolating ever since judges in Nebraska and Missouri last year banned the word rape during rape trials.
The article contains many examples.
This relates largely to the Nebraska case reported in July 2007. From Slate:
Nebraska law offers judges broad discretion to ban evidence or language that present the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues or misleading the jury. And its not unheard-of for judges to keep certain words out of a courtroom. Words like victim have been increasingly kept out of trials, since they tend to imply that a crime was committed. And as Safis lawyer, Clarence Mock, explains, the word rape is just as loaded. Its a legal conclusion for a witness to say, I was raped or sexually assaulted. … Thats for a jury to decide. His concern is that the word rape so inflames jurors …
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» Language Log » Banned words in the courtroom
» A Nebraska judge bans the word rape from his courtroom. - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine
Usually we leave it up to the linguists and philosophers to muse on the crazy relationship between words and their meanings. In the law, words—the important ones, at least—are defined narrowly, and judges, lawyers, and jurors are trus…
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