Voir Dire

Which is French for "to speak the truth."

I've spent the last several days grazing over this report for my Documents and Testifying Class. Its a psychological evaluation on an in-patient for his competency to stand trial. Basically we had to know this report and then testify on it today in a real courtroom with real attorneys and a judge. We were called in a completely random manner based on the order of our vitas.

Well I was called first...

Honestly I had very little anxiety about the whole thing. The only time it got slightly elevated was when I was with my other classmates in the hallway. And even then, I just had to focus myself and ignore most of their anxieties. And it worked.

So I was called to the stand and went to the wrong side of the judge. Not sure why, because I knew which side I was really supposed to sit. But the judge didn't care and he let me go there anyways. He raised his hand which I followed as if to take the oath and he said "eh whatever" and chuckled. He was a really nice judge. And the attorneys were fabulous too.

Voir dire for an expert witness is the process by which the attorneys can stipluate that the witness is an expert and their opinion should be heard in court. I was asked questions regarding my employment, schooling, research experience, trainings and other things that would qualify me as an expert in my field. Some of it was made up which made it really difficult to make up a job that has not existed and such. I did get to discuss my true experiences, such as my work with the juveniles and my education in NoDak. I also had to briefly discuss the confidentiality limits of the evaluation and the purpose of the evaluation. I went through direct and cross examination.

Overall I did a good job and felt confident in my testimony. I was happy to be called for voir dire because it's the easiest portion of the testimony. What was really good about the experience is that the attorneys and judge used legalese and the process was semi-formal in some aspects. I got some positive feedback from everybody including my demeanor and voice quality. They also offered constructive criticism to me and the rest of the group and gave us a lot of quality advice. It was a really good experience and I'm glad I got to do it.