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PAINE ON PROCEDURE
Lying professors: Contradiction impeachment By Donald F. Paine The common law then and now allows us to impeach witnesses by a method called contradiction, not to be confused with impeachment by inconsistent statement. The twain are easy to distinguish. With contradiction impeachment two persons said different things; with inconsistent statement impeachment one person said two different things. No Tennessee or federal rule restates impeachment by contradiction, but Wigmore cited precedents going back to the 17th Century. Mount Holyoke College: Meet Joltin’ Joe Ellis. While in high school he scored the winning touchdown in his final football game. He served with distinction in Vietnam as a member of the 101st Airborne, assigned for a while to General Westmoreland’s headquarters. Ashamed of his service upon return to America, he participated in civil rights activities in Mississippi and war protests in several venues. What a guy! And what a liar. While bragging to his history students (and his wife) about his exploits, this lying sack knew that facts contradicted him. The only way Joe got on a football field was by playing in the band. He never worked in Mississippi or Vietnam. Sentence: Suspension from teaching for a year. Emory University: Meet ballistics expert Michael Bellesiles (pronounced Bell-eel), another history prof. He won the Bancroft Prize for writing a book, Arming America, wherein he destroyed the myth that America has historically been a gun culture. San Francisco records proved his point beyond reasonable doubt. What a scholar! And what a liar. An earthquake and fire destroyed those records, Mike. Sentence: Resignation under pressure. Harvard Law School: And now meet (he’s unavoidable) Alan The Loud Dershowitz, who penned The Case for Israel. He went right to original sources to make a persuasive and irrefutable argument. That’s truth and light! But the loudmouth’s pants were on fire. He cribbed passage after passage from a 1984 book by Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial. His feeble explanation to the Harvard Crimson was that he read the same sources that Ms. Peters read and cited those rather than her book. But Alan, why are the mistakes in your quotes the same as the mistakes in her quotes? Please. … What sentence will be visited on this jerk? If I know Harvard, none. Note that each of these professors is impeached, not by his own inconsistent statements of facts, but by contradictory facts from other sources. Impeachment by contradiction can be the most devastating method. Use it to brand liars for what they are. Donald F. Paine is a past president of the Tennessee Bar Association and is of counsel to the Knoxville firm of Paine, Tarwater, Bickers, and Tillman LLP. He lectures for the Tennessee Law Institute, BAR/BRI Bar Review, Tennessee Judicial Conference, and University of Tennessee College of Law. He is reporter to the Supreme Court Advisory Commission on Rules of Practice and Procedure.
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