Talk:Objection (United States law)

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The characterization of the "argumentative" objection is incorrect. This is defined by Black as "A faulty form of examination of witness by propounding a question which suggests answer in a manner favorable to party who advances the question or which contains a statement in place of a question."

In other words, no one is arguing with a witness - the lawyer is making her closing argument (in the form of a question) at an improper point in the proceedings.

This entire entry is a direct copy of this web page: http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/405/405lect08.htm 216.80.126.215 02:46, 28 March 2007 (UTC)KLS

What about withdrawing? On TV, instead of overruled or sustained, often the other lawyer will say "withdrawn," as if they agree with the objection. 206.162.195.126 (talk) 23:44, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Objections also apply to discovery

This article is incorrect by implying that objections are solely a trial tactic. Objections can be raised in writing in response to discovery and orally at depositions. --Coolcaesar 08:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

So fix it! I'm not a lawyer, but I wrote the article mostly based on the references given, which solely talked about objections in trials, not in discovery or deposition. DHowell 06:59, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Worldwide view

Well, is it a term/practice used in other countries? I didn't add the tag, but it would have been nice for the person that did to explain themselves.--SeizureDog 03:12, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Not in my jurisdiction. Depending on the formality of the setting, there's no particular procedure for objecting to something that is being done in court. If, as would generally be unlikely, an opponent is asking a question that would lead to inadmissible evidence, I might suggest to the judge something along the lines of "I don't believe my learned friend wants to ask that question", but that would only be at the highest level of formality. In the vast majority of hearings and trials there is only a judge as finder of fact and the judge feels perfectly able to disregard evidence that would not be admissible (and so on) and so will only pay slight attention to what counsel might have to say on the matter. Even with a jury, the process is far less formal. There is no "record" in the USian sense (although proceedings may be recorded and a transcript produced), which perhaps makes a difference. Really its a totally alien practice. Francis Davey 11:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Note: the above commenter's jurisdiction is England and Wales. Thought that worth mentioning, as he doesn't actually say! 86.149.133.230 (talk) 20:46, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

This is interesting. Objections are so prevalent in U.S. courtroom procedure that popular culture would have us believe that the practice is prevalent everywhere. As an example, I was recently watching a rerun of an episode of the U.S. TV series [JAG], "People v. SecNav", which had the Secretary of the Navy on trial for war crimes in the International Criminal Court, and "objections" were thrown around by both sides, including by the prosecutor, who was French if I recall correctly. I suspect, however, that this TV episode did not reflect the realities of international courtroom procedure. DHowell 03:28, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Objectivity

"Eventually most lawyers and judges came to recognize that exceptions were a waste of time." is certainly not a concrete statement, and is therefore not worthy of addition to an article. I have removed it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.109.0.71 (talk) 02:48, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

And I am countermanding that deletion. Most ABA-accredited law schools teach their students in Evidence courses that exceptions were abolished in federal practice and in most states because they were a waste of time. Only a few states (e.g. North Carolina) are foolish enough to retain such a hypertechnical excuse for appellate courts to evade the hard questions presented in appeals. --Coolcaesar (talk) 05:09, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Formal request has been received to merge: List of objections into Objection (law); dated: 2 April 2018. [ Proposer's Rationale: Neither article is very long and the contents can be combined into one article. 69.118.32.213 ] Discuss here. GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 05:26, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. Innab (talk) 00:10, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Do you have a source for that?

I just noticed that User:Plrk moved this article from the title "Objection (law)" to "Objection (United States law)" on 22 May 2018. The edit summary was as follows: "the term discussed is not the same used in European Union law."

Do you have a source for that? The last time I checked, inquisitorial systems generally don't use evidentiary objections like adversarial systems because they don't have lay juries vulnerable to gonzo tactics like the Chewbacca defense. If I don't see any sources soon, I am reverting that move. --Coolcaesar (talk) 04:38, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Coolcaesar (talk · contribs), apologies if you already know this but it's helpful to ping people when you want them to respond - for example Plrk (talk · contribs) should ping. I believe {{User|<username>}} or {{Ping|<username>}} work. II | (t - c) 06:18, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, @ImperfectlyInformed:. @Coolcaesar:: Yes, the term has a similar meaning in the general sense but the article opens with "In the law of the United States of America" and discusses the subject from an entirely American point of view. All cited sources and all external links refer to the term in its American context. I think the article gives a very good exposition over the history and usage of the term in the American context, so rather than suggest it be re-written from scratch I thought it should have a more fitting title. A more general article with a worldwide view can be written at Objection (law) and refer to this article for details. Plrk (talk) 20:07, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Plrk (talk · contribs), I would prefer not to have another article. Maintenance is easier with fewer articles (less things to watch). Also I kinda agree with Coolcaesar (talk · contribs) in that putting United States law for a concept which is inherently US / English (on an English Wikipedia) is not elegant. We can clarify that in the lead. II | (t - c) 00:47, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Concur. What ImperfectlyInformed is getting at is that Wikipedia policy is to not disambiguate in the title itself unless absolutely necessary. Unless you actually have a reliable source pointing to any civil law system that actually uses evidentiary objections, there is no need to disambiguate to distinguish this topic from something else that does not exist. --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:42, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

I am not schooled in law, least of all foreign law, and I don't know the subject well enough to actually write an article myself. Actually I barely understand what you're saying about "inquisitorial systems" and "evidentiary objections" (I've read the Wikipedia articles now, thank you). But I know this: the term exists and is used outside the United States of America, and this article is about the term as used in the United States of America. Thus, it is aptly named. It is also a well-written and informative article. To conform to the Wikipedia policy of NPOV, it would have to be re-written to give due weight to the term as used in other common law systems. Plrk (talk) 20:07, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

If you don't understand the basic difference between inquisitorial and adversarial systems of justice (one of the first and most basic distinctions taught to beginner law students around the world), then you are way out of your depth. I strongly suggest deferring to the experts on this one. --Coolcaesar (talk) 08:03, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

I am most certainly deferring to the experts in regards to these terms. However, you do not need to be trained in law to realize that an article opening with the words "In the law of the United States of America" is not an article with a world-wide view. The term exists and is used outside the United States of America, and this article is about the term as used in the United States of America. Thus, the article is aptly named as-is. You will have to excuse a dumb non-lawyer, but I have seen no argument that rebuts this. The Wikipedia policy of NPOV is certainly more important than an (un-referenced, by the way) policy of non-disambiguation. User ImperfectlyInformed above stated that the concept is "inherently US / English" which definitely reveals a bias: our own article on the inquisitorial system, while itself having problems with a worldwide view, discusses medieval Europe, France before Napoleon, Scotland - very much non-English, and non-American, areas. Plrk (talk) 19:29, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Under Wikipedia policy, specifically WP:V, the burden is on the editor who makes a edit to justify that edit. You have no source for your view that "[t]he term exists and is used outside the United States of America." That is your own unsupported personal belief and amounts to a fallacious argument from ignorance. I am reversing your unsupported edit forthwith. --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:01, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

I reverted the move of Coolcaesar under the BRD-cycle. The proper venue for this is requested moves and see what the discussion turns out. The term is used extensively in in (private and public) international law. For example, it is possible to raise objections against the accession of states to the Hague Maintenance Convention. Article 58.5 reads (emphasis is mine):

• (5) Such accession shall have effect only as regards the relations between the acceding State and those Contracting States which have not raised an objection' to its accession in the 12 months after the date of the notification referred to in Article 65. Such an objection may also be raised by States at the time when they ratify, accept or approve the Convention after an accession. Any such objection shall be notified to the depositary.

Objections in the sense of "preliminary objections" may also be raised in proceedings in many countries (eg to dispute the forum). In other words: the objection raised in court as a point of order to decided immediately seems highly (and maybe exclusively; I don't know the law of all countries) specific to the US system, but that does not mean that the objection in law is a US specific subject. To use such a general term for a specific procedure in a specific country is not very useful. L.tak (talk) 09:47, 9 April 2020 (UTC)