One of the most interesting trials was that of Byron de la Beckwith charged with the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers in 1963. Two earlier trials resulted in hung juries and the D.A. didn't try again. But Medgar's widow never gave up trying to get justice and finally convinced a D.A. and attorney Bobby Delaughter to reopen the case in 1994.Great post. The epitome of excellence. I have never read any of your posts that were not accurate. TX executed an inmate last evening where the lawyers told the court several things. Such as a witness named Coons testimony was wrong so the inmate should not be executed under TX law. Several high courts rejected this since the crime of murder had clearly been admitted to. But the inmate confessed his crime. So the witness even if wrong, was not saving the now dead inmate.
The defense's star witness claimed he saw de la Beckwith in a city 90 miles away from the murder at the time of the murder. Delaughter impeached that testimony that the guy knew his friend de la Beckwith was in prison but gave nobody that information for the weeks that de la Beckwith remained in jail before the trial. Delaughter also found other witnesses who strengthened his case with the information. de la Beckwith was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, lost his appeal, SCOTUS refused to hear the case.
In short the lesson to be learned is that witnesses can and sometimes do lie. And my hubby is a career senior insurance adjuster and I also was a licensed adjuster for awhile before we went into business for ourselves. And we can both testify with MUCH experience that sometimes eye witness testimony can be extremely unreliable. And having been in court for some insurances cases, mostly work comp, I can say that I have NEVER heard a defendant testify in a way that he/she knows would weaken his/her case.