There is a now-relevant parallel here to the difference here between matters before a judge & matters before a jury. Judges are far more reluctant to strike testimony or evidence if they are the only recipients of it, with the theory being that they are really smart about ...

law stuff & will know what they can & can't consider. For instance, there is a long-held rule that a fact witness can't make legal arguments, only a lawyer. So what will happen in a motion for summary judgment, where the entire proceeding is on paper, will play out like this:
1) Defendant makes a motion for summary judgment. It includes a sworn declaration from some fact witness.

2) The declaration includes all sorts of legal arguments about why the defendant should win. Often the declaration includes arguments the brief didn't even make.
Defendants (especially DOJ-represented ones) often do this to get around the word or page-limits placed on briefs.

3) Plaintiff moves to strike the declaration for its inclusion of inadmissible legal arguments.

4) Judge denies the motion to strike, on the grounds that a ...
judge is a sophisticated consumer of evidence & can choose what to consider & what to ignore, unlike a jury.

The legal fiction behind this impeachment exception is that Senators are also smart enough to know what to listen to & what to ignore. Now, that may not be ACCURATE, ...
but, like all legal fictions, in the eyes of the law it is, just like the idea that an overworked judge can suss out & apply on his own every evidentiary issue in complex written testimony in every case.

The U.S. legal system is adversarial expressly because judges are human ...
too, but legal fictions like this are still prevalent to represent the idea that when it comes down to it, it's really only about keeping the simple jurors from being confused. So a Senator might have a reasonable objection to being presented with hearsay evidence, but unless ...
that same Senator is willing to advocate that that the rules of evidence must apply as strictly to matters before judges as to matters before juries, then that's not the Senator's real objection.

Additionally, it should be noted that it is logistically impossible for a ...
Senator to disregard any testimony on the grounds that it is "hearsay" in this case & still vote to acquit Trump on substantial grounds. Literally the entire defense substantive case rests on hearsay. Every time a defense lawyer tells you how Trump felt, that's hearsay. Every ...
time a defense lawyer tells you what Trump did in the White House, that's hearsay. The House Managers are literally the only people to have introduced admissible evidence in this case. So if you're complaining about hearsay, you can't acquit Trump by saying you were convinced ...
by his lawyers' defense.

A few caveats here. First, I am ignoring the people who will acquit him saying that he can't be impeached because he's not President. That's not an acquittal based on the substance. That's a purely legal question where evidence plays zero role.
Personally I think it's monumentally stupid, but that's not the focus of this thread.

Second, there are plenty of other reasons things like hearsay don't apply in impeachments, which I & other people discussed at length last January. Tl;dr this is a political proceeding, not ...
legal one, just like every other impeachment. So the above analysis isn't the only response to "but but HEARSAY." It's just one that hasn't seen a lot of coverage because it's so in the weeds, but it's still a clear example of hypocrisy by the people complaining about hearsay.

More from Law

@littlecarrotq I've been tracking these since December. Michigan


Wisconsin


Georgia


Arizona


Another Pennsylvania case. This is the most important one in my opinion. It shows the Republican Legislature broke the law when they created a mail-in ballot law in October, 2019, which they knew was against the state
Some WESC submissions that are worth a read....(my thread of bookmarks)

Judge Paula Grey is president of the Gender Recognition Panel

She doesn't make any recommendations, but she sets out how the process currently works

Which chimes with my analysis of the GRP User Panel and statistics
https://t.co/XixEz7lNJv

She is also co-author if the Equal Treatment Bench Book and writes about how the judges are trained by Gendered Intelligence


There is the government's own response

https://t.co/bOn9XecAkz

On single sex spaces they say the law is clear that service providers are able to restrict access to spaces on the basis of biological sex where there is clear justification.


The response from @womensaid is significant.

Their members want trans survivors to get support they need but not by undermining their ability to serve women with female staff & female only services

They highlight lack of clarity

https://t.co/p7096sZcos


This was their position in 2015

They have moved on alot - they have been consulting with members since last year, and have had the courage to say what their members told them, not what Stonewall wanted to

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