Shelterdog said:
Thanks. What I'm trying to get at it whether (unlike, perhaps, a civil case) you've encountered juror sentiment that witnesses really play it straight with prosecutors. I could imagine a law and order jury being pissed at a witness because they fought a prosecutor (that's the government--you should tell them the truth); I could likewise could imagine jurors from communities that had problems with abusive cops/prosecutors having no problems with people being evasive. Have you personally run into anything like that?
Not really. Not in a way to make it a trend. I'd say about 95% of witnesses (if not more) in criminal trials are called by the state. Victims, custodians of records, cops, etc. The defense will sometimes call eyewitnesses and experts. Mostly they don't fight prosecutors per se - defense friendly eyewitnesses tell what happened, defense experts are pros enough (usually) not to play games. Sometimes the defendant testifies. I'd guess my ratio of calling defense witnesses (including the defendant) at trial is about 1 in every 10 cases? Maybe less. And those witnesses are fully prepped not to adopt an attitude that will make them a liability instead of a help.
It really devolves to the particulars, I think. I'm not saying the dynamic you're thinking about is incorrect in particular cases, just that I'm not sure it's a useful generalization. Crappy witnesses usually hurt the side that they're "on," to the extent that they're relevant. There's also a question of how much that side "invites" the problems in the witness's testimony. Juries can see an attorney fishing for facts and deflecting bias; I'd like to think they don't hold that against that attorney's client. Juries can also see an attorney eliciting "shady" stuff - here, the testimony that the box smelled of MJ (for the first time today) is something that would, in light of SJ's other testimony, make me raise my eyes as a juror. It might also cause me to mistrust the defense.