• Square Singer@feddit.de
    461·
    1 year ago

    Judge: Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

    Me: Fuck. Here, I swore.

  • GCanuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3512·
    1 year ago

    “You’re in contempt of court. You have been fined $x and continued refusal to swear the oath will land you in prison until you do. Jackass.”

    That’s what the judge does.

    • pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz
      125·
      1 year ago

      How is it legal for them to just throw you in jail forever just for pissing off a judge? Why even pretend we have rights if that’s how the system is going to operate?

      • kmkz_ninja@lemmy.world
        243·
        1 year ago

        Because other people have a right to a speedy trial as well, and if you’re intentionally holding up the court’s time they’re going to punish you.

        • RegularGoose@sh.itjust.works
          61·
          1 year ago

          It’s illegal to lie to the court. Even if all oaths weren’t utterly worthless, one made under duress is inherently invalid. This one serves literally no purpose other than to psychologically dominate a person.

          • kmkz_ninja@lemmy.world
            6·
            1 year ago

            It’s just a more formal affirmation. Lots of people “promise” things they have no intention of really trying. It’s a grander gestire for grander consequences.

            • RegularGoose@sh.itjust.works
              2·
              1 year ago

              No it isn’t. Oaths aren’t “grand gestures,” they’re just silly. This one is worse than silly; it’s the rough equivalent of a school bully putting you in a headlock and not letting you go until you agree to whatever bullshit he wants from you, and beating the shit out of you if you won’t.

              • kmkz_ninja@lemmy.world
                1·
                1 year ago

                It’s a “grander gesture” (quote me correctly pls) than an informal promise with a friend. Do you consider signing a lease or a mortgage to be the rough equivalent of a school bully putting you in a headlock?

                • RegularGoose@sh.itjust.works
                  1·
                  1 year ago

                  No, because I can refuse to sign the lease and I won’t get put in prison for that. Swearing a compulsory oath under threat of imprisonment in a sitiation you were forced to be in isn’t any kind if gesture, it’s just submission to coersion, nothing more, nothing less.

        • pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz
          510·
          1 year ago

          That doesn’t give them the right to jail you indefinitely. This system lies and tells you we all have rights, but if they can just do that forever because you insulted or angered a judge, then you need to realize it is just a lie and we don’t have rights. It’s the same authoritarianism people fought and died to erase from the world. Judges can’t be allowed to just do what they want.

          • kmkz_ninja@lemmy.world
            53·
            1 year ago

            They aren’t jailing you indefinitely just because you angered the judge. They might give you a few days if, again, you’re just being an asshole or wasting time.

            I’ve seen a lot of “Oh, judges can’t be trusted” since Trumps indictments have rolled out. I wonder why that is.

            • pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz
              1·
              1 year ago

              The conversation presupposes they will. Actually, that’s exactly what the others were saying. Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, bro.

              The legal system simply is illegitimate, and the fact that can happen is one of the Mt. Everest high pile of reasons why

              • vivadanang@lemm.ee
                3·
                1 year ago

                the legal system fucks everyone, trumpies just don’t want it to fuck their guy. It’s like, welcome to the party guys lol.

          • Jesse@lemmy.ca
            61·
            1 year ago

            By refusing to tell the truth to the court, you’re basically refusing to take part in the trial. Which translates to you’re refusing to take part in the justice system, yet also somehow wanting justice … ??

            • pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz
              17·
              1 year ago

              The thread is talking about a dude telling a joke. It’s obviously a joke. And you’re defending the possibility that a judge could have someone be jailed for years over it. That in the land of the free you can be tortured on the order of a psuedo king over a joke.

              No. Fuck that, and fuck you. There is nothing legitimate or defensible about that, goodbye.

      • doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        12·
        1 year ago

        You mean by a court subpoena? If so then you testify or get found in contempt of court.

        Or do you mean what if someone is threatened/blackmailed into giving false testimony? If that’s the case then you should probably go to the police. If it’s law enforcement who are coercing you then I suppose you could try to include that fact in the testimony, but there may not be much difference in that and refusing to comply with the blackmailer in the first place, in terms of your safety.

        If you’re coerced to lie under oath then I’d guess that still counts as perjury, but I doubt most judges would be mad at you for it; they’d shit fury all over whoever was coercing you.

            • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
              6·
              1 year ago

              Some rulings that pleading the 5th can be considered cause for a warrant if not directly an admission of guilt.

              The past decade or so has also weakened rights in regards to you having to plead the 5th directly, and of course the “War on Terror” led to the Supreme Court more or less saying “No, actually, torture doesn’t count, plus we’re going to ignore that it’s been the official position of America for centuries that Constitutional rights are human rights (for a changing definition of human).”

              Taken as a whole the past couple decades have severely reduced the protections the government wants to admit the 5th offers.

          • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
            8·
            1 year ago

            You still can’t use the 5th to infer anything about the defendant in a criminal case. In a civil case, the court can take a person’s refusal to answer into account.

      • GBU_28@lemm.eeEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        You speak to your lawyer ahead of time and they discuss the issue with the judge.

    • Neato@kbin.social
      471·
      1 year ago

      It’s really a process of letting the subpoenaed know that they either tell the truth, lie and face perjury charges, or refuse and face contempt or court charges. The latter can seemingly land you in jail in perpetuity. Because fuck you, I guess?

        • Neato@kbin.social
          252·
          1 year ago

          That’s mostly for police. Once you’re in court and ordered to testify, the person talking about germany is mostly correct. You can’t be forced to self-incriminate nor testify against a spouse. Otherwise yes. Generally 99% of courts won’t bother even asking the defendant to testify because self-incrimination is practically guaranteed. Usually only if the defense calls on them, which is often a bad idea.

        • lazyvar@programming.dev
          3·
          1 year ago

          Only if there’s a risk at incriminating yourself, and if it’s not immediately apparent how you’d run that risk (e.g. you’re a witness that doesn’t have a direct relation to the crime at hand) you’d have to motivate how it could be incriminating.

    • misty@lemmy.world
      164·
      1 year ago

      If that’s the best the judge can do, I feel sorry for them. And I will leave it at that.

      • doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        22·
        1 year ago

        IDK, imprisoning a person until they either comply or the trial concludes without them seems pretty good for the judge. Bad for the person subpoenaed, but it’s no skin of the judge’s back

        • Tetsuo@jlai.lu
          1·
          1 year ago

          Just curious but how could you be forced to testify?

          Do you mean you are forced to come to the stand and in court ?

          • krische@lemmy.world
            2·
            1 year ago

            Well I’d imagine I’d go like anytime someone doesn’t follow a court order; you get jailed and/or fined in contempt of court.

          • newIdentity@sh.itjust.works
            21·
            1 year ago

            Its illegal to not tell everything you know in court. If you say nothing, you might get sued. And if you say you don’t know anything, you’re fucked when another witness says you knew it.

            There are only three exceptions:

            1. You might get yourself in trouble, in that case you don’t have to answer the question
            2. It’s a case against a family member in which case you also don’t have to testify.
            3. It would go against your professional secrecy

            But you have to testify against a friend.

            I just looked it up and it’s exactly the same in the US. So you also can be force to testify in Murica

            • Johanno@feddit.de
              1·
              1 year ago

              You don’t have to testify against your fianceé. So if you engage with your friend right before the court you don’t have to testify. You can break up right after. Happens a lot apparently

              • newIdentity@sh.itjust.works
                2·
                1 year ago

                Nah. You have to testify against your fiancé. You just don’t have to testify against your wife. So you need to marry.

                Edit: Nvm, but you can’t break up directly after that.

        • sharpiemarker@feddit.de
          3·
          1 year ago

          I’m not sure as I’m not a legal expert. I can say that if they know that you’re not going to be honest, there’s no reason for your testimony.

          • newIdentity@sh.itjust.works
            4·
            1 year ago

            They can put charges on you for lying in court as a witness. You can get 6 months to 15 years in prison if you lie under outh.

            And if you don’t want to say anything as a witness, you also get detention for up to 6 months. Oh. And they have to pay for it.

            Thats what I figured out after a quick Google search at least

            In most cases they lie and say: “I really would want to testify, but I can’t really remember anymore.” and it’s pretty hard to prove that their memory isn’t shit.

    • Malle_Yeno@pawb.social
      30·
      1 year ago

      Generally speaking, you will be asked to swear or affirm that you are going to tell the truth, and that you understand the consequences of not telling the truth. Whether you do a whole ceremony about it or not, it doesn’t really matter – but the court will want to know that you are competent to testify truthfully and that you know that you’re not allowed to testify to things you know aren’t true.

      If you’re asking “can you be forced to testify?”, the answer is “Yes but it depends.” If you’re competent to testify and the officers of the court deem your testimony important, they can subpoena your testimony. If you have a reason to contest it, you can – but “I don’t want to” isn’t good enough.

  • Big Miku@lemm.eeEnglish
    91·
    1 year ago

    If this happens they’ll do the “A person who swears to tell the truth and nothing but the truth says what” ordeal. If that doesn’t work they will just let you leave

  • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    14·
    1 year ago

    I once crossed off something I didn’t like on a contract and the boss scolded me and put a fresh new one in front of me while printing out yet another one.

    • zkikiz@lemmy.mlEnglish
      24·
      1 year ago

      All contracts are negotiable, you did nothing wrong other than not having a conversation before wasting paper, the main issue is that for most people the negotiation is “if you want to work here you have to agree to all this.”

      But yeah reasonable accommodation and mutual understandings, etc, should be written down and signed. I challenged the non-disclosure agreement at my job once because it literally said I couldn’t talk about my work with ANYONE, and a plain reading of it would mean I’d be unable to even talk to my boss about what I was supposed to be doing. It was poorly written and probably unenforceable. My boss didn’t like that so I signed it anyway and then focused on finding work elsewhere (he was a dick and his company got raided by the FBI a few years later)