• call_me_xale@lemmy.zip
    1421·
    3 days ago

    My favorite (paraphrased):

    Attorney: “You are absolutely certain that [victim] is dead?”

    Coroner: “Yes.”

    Attorney: “Were you there at the time of death?”

    Coroner: “No.”

    Attorney: “Then how can you be sure they’re dead?”

    Coroner: “Well, their brain is sitting in a jar on my desk, but I suppose the rest of them could be out practicing law somewhere.”

  • PhilipTheBucket@piefed.socialEnglish
    50·
    3 days ago

    You forgot one of the best. A lot of these are kind of funny, but there is a certain amount of stupid sounding legwork that the attorney is obligated to do that they may slip into doing too much of just by habit. It’s like the cops ask “And did he have your permission to punch you in the face? Did you consent to that?” They just have to cover the elements of the statute.

    Anyway. From memory so the precise wording is not verbatim (I think this one’s from a divorce trial):

    Attorney: And did you ever have sex with him in Salt Lake City?

    Witness: I’m not going to answer that question.

    Attorney: Did you ever have sex with him in Miami?

    Witness: I’m not going to answer that question.

    Attorney: Did you ever have sex with him in Key Largo?

    Witness: No.

  • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
    242·
    3 days ago

    Know your audience. You’d think attorneys were better at that, but I guess witnesses don’t decide whether someone gets made attorney or not.

    • DreamButt@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      3 days ago

      I think it’s a funny meeting of worlds thing. Like the kinda of people who can afford law school are generally not the kinds who grew up in an every day setting

      Colloquial speech vs professional jargon

      • noodles@slrpnk.net
        17·
        3 days ago

        Also a lot of what (good) trial lawyers do is cover all the small loopholes, so questions that seem silly are because Dr X-acto got off on murder by claiming it was an autopsy in 1798 or whatever. Or it’s a bad trial lawyer and it is silly.

    • tlmcleod@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      4·
      2 days ago

      Even if you ignore the whole beard aspect, the witness started their first sentence with He. That alone makes the next question redundant anyway

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        141·
        2 days ago

        Probably because some trans women have beards and the kind of person who would think that trans inclusiveness is a special Lemmy thing is often also the kind of person who doesn’t bother to learn that sex, gender, and gender expression are different things and suspects that ignorance in jokes from a time where that ignorance was the norm to the point of being near-absolute is SUPER triggering to rational non-bigots? 🤷

              • alci@sh.itjust.works
                4·
                2 days ago

                I’m not very interested in these questions, but my understanding is that gender refers to a role in society, while sex is more qbout biology.

          • Honytawk@feddit.nl
            2·
            2 days ago

            Of course.

            Gender is a spectrum between feminine and masculine. It is determined by society and can change depending on when and where you live.

            For example, a skirt is seen as something feminine. But go to Scotland and there it is something masculine instead.

            • SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works
              1·
              2 days ago

              Thanks. There’s a lot of bad faith replies here; I appreciate the honest engagement. I get the feeling that we’re heading into circular logic territory if we were to discuss what it means to be “masculine” or “feminine” in a gender-fluid, sex-abstracted context. It’d be best if we leave it here, as much as it pains me to stifle my own curiosity.

              • MotoAsh@piefed.socialEnglish
                2·
                2 days ago

                They inform each other through culture, but they are not the same thing. Just like female lions do most of the hunting. To them, hunting might end up a feminine trait.

                Centuries ago, it was expected for women to wear pants, now, not so much. In the Victorian era, men wore makeup too. The social expectations that inform gender change drastically. To be gender non-conforming can mean very different things in different societies. For example; David Bowie. In the Victorian era, he’d have barely stood out at all, besides his talents.

                Sex is about the physical body, and gender is about self-identification. Social norms inform what attributes are attributed to what, but it is seldom (virtually never) anything set in stone.

                On top of that, the more rigid society tries to be, the more room there is to be “different” and for people to not feel included by those rigid expectations. So the hilarious irony is, conservative shitheads trying to make everyone conform does the exact opposite of what they want; It creates more dejected and excluded people, who are then more likely to be anything but “normal”.

          • Brainsploosh@lemmy.world
            21·
            2 days ago

            What?

            Gender is the social expression of sex. Just as language is the social expression of biology. They are linked, yet have layers of abstraction inbetween.

            You being the shit is similar to the feeling of excreting, yet is typically not how we map those.