Lectures 24 & 25 Flashcards
(64 cards)
what is the Literal Truth Standard for Perjury of the Bronston Case?
Bronston case: What he literally said was true!
* Why should we have such a
strict standard for perjury?
* Because the questioner can always ask more questions if the answer seems evasive or unclear.
* Repeated evasion is punished as contempt of court.
what did SCOTUS say about Literal Truth Standard for Perjury?
“Precise questioning is imperative as a predicate for the offense of perjury”.
Judges, including US Supreme Court, must figure out what?
meaning of laws and Constitution
As Judges must figure out meaning of laws and Constitution, what is this called?
interpretation
Methods of interpretation are ________________.
controversial
Figure out original intent of law. Use all
information to identify what the speaker (=writer of law) was trying to convey
Originalism
Figure out literal meaning of law (e.g., by using dictionaries). Ignore information about intent.
Textualism
what is the goal of Textualism?
to provide a consistent basis
for interpreting laws
- disallow any outside information
“whoever, during and in relation to any crime of violence or drug trafficking crime … uses or carries a firearm“ gets an extra 5-year sentence”. What was Congress’s original intent when it adopted the phrase “uses a firearm”?
- Using the butt of a gun as a hammer.
- Trading the gun for something.
- Having a gun in the house or car
what was an actual case where “uses a firearm” was in context?
- Defendant traded a gun for crack cocaine.
- Defendant stored a gun in a locked suitcase in a closet. The suitcase also contained two rocks of crack.
- Defendant had 30 grams of cocaine with him in a car. There was a gun in the trunk of the car.
- Justice O’Connor: Defendant “‘used’ his MAC-10 in an attempt to obtain drugs by offering to trade it for cocaine.”
- “A gun can surely be used even when it is not being handled
Warren Demesme case
Warren Demesme said, “Why don’t you just give me a lawyer, dog?”
* Was not provided with a lawyer
* Louisiana’s High Court ruled that he had not asked for counsel
* Justice Chrichton: “In my view, the defendant’s ambiguous and equivocal reference to a ‘lawyer dog’ does not constitute an invocation of counsel that
warrants termination of the interview.”
True or false? Everyone has an accent
TRUE
TRUE OR FALSE? Everyone speaks a dialect
TRUE
Where do people objectively speak the best English?
There’s no such thing
How do we know we have many variations of English?
- grammar is Idiolectal (individual)
- Extensive regional variation
- Variation related to social class, gender, sexuality, age, ethnicity…
- Variation over time: historical change
what does being wrong in language depend on?
Depends on goals and intentions!
“If speakers can understand each other, they’re speaking
dialects of the same language.”
* “If they can’t, they’re speaking separate languages.”
Mutual intelligibility
In Mutual intelligibility, what is an example of asymmetry?
Romanians can often understand
Italian; the reverse tends not to be true. (Similar issues with Brazilian and European Portuguese; Canadian and European French.)
In Mutual intelligibility, what is an example of Dialect continua?
Some Dutch dialects are mutually
intelligible with some German dialects, but not all!
In Mutual intelligibility, what is Reference point?
Whose comprehension matters?
People vary in how well they can understand different dialects.
A language is a dialect with an army and
a navy. what does this mean?
Originally quoted in Yiddish, a language
that did not have an army and a navy.
What gets called a language and a dialect has a lot to do with _____________.
politics
If you imitate it and speakers are impressed, it’s a ______________.
language
If you imitate it and speakers get angry, it’s a _____________!
dialect
