In England and Wales, examination-in-chief, and in the USA, direct examination is the first stage in examination (erste Zeugenvernehmung) of witnesses in court. It’s the stage where the witness’s ‘own’ counsel elicits what the witness has to say and is not allowed to ask leading questions (Suggestivfragen). It’s followed by cross-examination (Kreuzverhör), where the opposing counsel can ask all the leading questions he or she wants!

The Independent produces a transcript of yesterday’s examination-in-chief of Ian Huntley. Defendants charged with the murder of two ten-year-old girls don’t always take the stand. Huntley tells how the girls died in his house, without being murdered. Counsel for the defence is Stephen Coward.

bq. COWARD: Did you try on either of the girls any resuscitation?
HUNTLEY: No.
COWARD: Do you know why you didn’t?
HUNTLEY: Holly was, had gone a strange colour. Jessica I felt for signs of – I felt none and to be honest I weren’t quite sure what to do.
COWARD: If these identical events were to repeat again what do you think you would do now?
HUNTLEY: I would have pulled Holly out of the bath straight away … I remember thinking about what to do and I was thinking of calling the police but I couldn’t believe what had happened and I kept thinking how do you explain this to the police. If you can’t believe what has happened yourself, how are you going to expect the police to believe what you say?

From Rainer Langenhan’s newsletter

Keyword map: enter a word in the lower of the two fields (not ‘web search’) to get a map of associations and combinations of the word. The idea is to help you find other combinations to enter into search engines to find what you’re looking for. Doesn’t handle umlauts.

This site represents the relations between search engines.

Nextlinks at Leipzig University allows you to enter a URL and find similar or related URLs. It’s new, and it concentrates on Germany. – Of course, Leipzig University has a lot more available for terminology work.

The monthly update of the LLRX.com site has just appeared. Entries include:

Karen Lasnick and Julie Weber of Bryan Cave discussing how weblogs were used in their firm.

An update of: European Union Law: An Integrated Guide to Electronic and Print Research
By Marylin J. Raisch

Cindy Carlson on Boolean searching

Handakte WebLAWg links to the latest version of the UK Yearbook (2004) online.

I can remember when this book was only available as an expensive hardback. I remember once or twice buying it, despite the expense, to teach British background studies. The best thing was the maps. Now the whole thing is online. It used to be called Britain Yearbook, now it is UK Yearbook. Here is the best page to see what’s on offer. And here are the colour maps as a PDF file.

I love the way the Commonwealth is coloured green – it was always pink when I was at school.

The German Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitution Court) recently decided that a German court could refuse to serve process in an American case where punitive damages were claimed. There was a time when such service was routinely refused in Germany; later, there was a change in the other direction; this present case relates only to a preliminary injunction and its effects are not clear.

There is an article on this subject by Bettina Friedrich in the new edition of the German Law Journal:

bq. … From the perspective of a German-trained attorney (and her clients), the most perplexing elements of American Procedural law are pre-trial discovery, disclosure of documents, written witness-statements followed by cross-examination, class-action suits and punitive damages. … From the perspective of an American-trained attorney, the perplexing element is that German Procedural Law is not familiar with these elements. …

bq. [3] For the German-trained lawyer, the ideas related to these elements often stem from novels like Jonathan Carr’s “A Civil Action,” movies like “The Pelican Brief” and “The Firm,” or Court TV. Their unfamiliarity renders them inherently suspicious. This suspicion influences debates about service of judicial documents and recognition of foreign judgments, particularly when punitive damages are at stake. The inconsistent fear of “Americanization of procedural rules” is used as a “striking argument” in debates related to the (new) Sec. 142 (3) Zivilprozessordnung (German Civil Procedure Code – ZPO). … It is a permanent topic in International Arbitration, particularly in discussions related to the ICC Rules. It is of particular interest if the ICC Rules provide for disclosure of documents in an “American style.”

The German Law Journal has been online for four years now and is still looking for funding so it can remain free of charge. It would also like to introduce a paper edition.