The Witness 2015 - Proverbs 19:5&9&22 - Phil Donahue - Sophocles - Jack Kerouac - John Updike - Will Rogers - Plautus - Erie CJ - Lord Langdale -
I was sixteen when my sister Kitty [Genovese] was murdered in New York City. In an instant she was gone. The Witness, brother, 2015
Police discovered more than thirty people had witnessed her attack and no-one had picked up the phone to call the police. ibid. news report
My sister has been the symbol of bystander apathy for decades. ibid. brother
But recently The Times published a new article: it challenged the accuracy of its original report. And others now claim the story of 38 witnesses is more myth than fact. ibid.
‘For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens’. ibid. original article
Moseley also confessed to the murder of a woman named Annie Mae Johnson … He shot her four times in the stomach. ibid.
‘I had gone out with intent on finding a woman and killing her.’ ibid. Moseley
A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape.
A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish.
The desire of a man is his kindness: and a poor man is better than a liar. Proverbs 19:5&9&22
I have been in the witness protection program for the last three weeks. I campaigned for Ralph Nader. I’m now living as a woman in Mississippi. Phil Donahue
There is no witness so terrible and no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us. Sophocles
My witness is the empty sky. Jack Kerouac
Suddenly summoned to witness something great and horrendous, we keep fighting not to reduce it to our own smallness. John Updike
You never know how much a man can’t remember until he is called as a witness. Will Rogers
One eye-witness weighs more than ten hearsays – Seeing is believing all the world over. Plautus, Truculentus II ii 6
Whether witnesses are material or not, does not depend upon the result, but upon this, whether a prudent attorney, having a due regard for the interests of his client, would have brought them. Erie C J, Dods v Evans 1864 15 CB NS 627
Generally speaking, a witness has no business to concern himself with the merits of the case in which he is called on to give evidence or whether, when given, it will be material to the cause. Lord Langdale MR, Langley v Fisher 1843 5 Beav 447