• GCanuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2331·
    1 year ago

    “You’re in contempt of court. You have been fined $x and continued refusal to swear the oath will land you in prison until you do. Jackass.”

    That’s what the judge does.

    • Neato@kbin.social
      312·
      1 year ago

      It’s really a process of letting the subpoenaed know that they either tell the truth, lie and face perjury charges, or refuse and face contempt or court charges. The latter can seemingly land you in jail in perpetuity. Because fuck you, I guess?

        • Neato@kbin.social
          251·
          1 year ago

          That’s mostly for police. Once you’re in court and ordered to testify, the person talking about germany is mostly correct. You can’t be forced to self-incriminate nor testify against a spouse. Otherwise yes. Generally 99% of courts won’t bother even asking the defendant to testify because self-incrimination is practically guaranteed. Usually only if the defense calls on them, which is often a bad idea.

        • lazyvar@programming.dev
          1·
          1 year ago

          Only if there’s a risk at incriminating yourself, and if it’s not immediately apparent how you’d run that risk (e.g. you’re a witness that doesn’t have a direct relation to the crime at hand) you’d have to motivate how it could be incriminating.

    • pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz
      82·
      1 year ago

      How is it legal for them to just throw you in jail forever just for pissing off a judge? Why even pretend we have rights if that’s how the system is going to operate?

      • kmkz_ninja@lemmy.world
        163·
        1 year ago

        Because other people have a right to a speedy trial as well, and if you’re intentionally holding up the court’s time they’re going to punish you.

        • RegularGoose@sh.itjust.works
          51·
          1 year ago

          It’s illegal to lie to the court. Even if all oaths weren’t utterly worthless, one made under duress is inherently invalid. This one serves literally no purpose other than to psychologically dominate a person.

        • pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz
          45·
          1 year ago

          That doesn’t give them the right to jail you indefinitely. This system lies and tells you we all have rights, but if they can just do that forever because you insulted or angered a judge, then you need to realize it is just a lie and we don’t have rights. It’s the same authoritarianism people fought and died to erase from the world. Judges can’t be allowed to just do what they want.

          • Jesse@lemmy.ca
            51·
            1 year ago

            By refusing to tell the truth to the court, you’re basically refusing to take part in the trial. Which translates to you’re refusing to take part in the justice system, yet also somehow wanting justice … ??

            • pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz
              17·
              1 year ago

              The thread is talking about a dude telling a joke. It’s obviously a joke. And you’re defending the possibility that a judge could have someone be jailed for years over it. That in the land of the free you can be tortured on the order of a psuedo king over a joke.

              No. Fuck that, and fuck you. There is nothing legitimate or defensible about that, goodbye.

  • Big Miku@lemm.eeEnglish
    751·
    1 year ago

    If this happens they’ll do the “A person who swears to tell the truth and nothing but the truth says what” ordeal. If that doesn’t work they will just let you leave

  • Square Singer@feddit.de
    251·
    1 year ago

    Judge: Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

    Me: Fuck. Here, I swore.

    • Malle_Yeno@pawb.social
      24·
      1 year ago

      Generally speaking, you will be asked to swear or affirm that you are going to tell the truth, and that you understand the consequences of not telling the truth. Whether you do a whole ceremony about it or not, it doesn’t really matter – but the court will want to know that you are competent to testify truthfully and that you know that you’re not allowed to testify to things you know aren’t true.

      If you’re asking “can you be forced to testify?”, the answer is “Yes but it depends.” If you’re competent to testify and the officers of the court deem your testimony important, they can subpoena your testimony. If you have a reason to contest it, you can – but “I don’t want to” isn’t good enough.

        • sharpiemarker@feddit.de
          2·
          1 year ago

          I’m not sure as I’m not a legal expert. I can say that if they know that you’re not going to be honest, there’s no reason for your testimony.

          • newIdentity@sh.itjust.works
            3·
            1 year ago

            They can put charges on you for lying in court as a witness. You can get 6 months to 15 years in prison if you lie under outh.

            And if you don’t want to say anything as a witness, you also get detention for up to 6 months. Oh. And they have to pay for it.

            Thats what I figured out after a quick Google search at least

            In most cases they lie and say: “I really would want to testify, but I can’t really remember anymore.” and it’s pretty hard to prove that their memory isn’t shit.

        • Tetsuo@jlai.lu
          0·
          1 year ago

          Just curious but how could you be forced to testify?

          Do you mean you are forced to come to the stand and in court ?

          • newIdentity@sh.itjust.works
            2·
            1 year ago

            Its illegal to not tell everything you know in court. If you say nothing, you might get sued. And if you say you don’t know anything, you’re fucked when another witness says you knew it.

            There are only three exceptions:

            1. You might get yourself in trouble, in that case you don’t have to answer the question
            2. It’s a case against a family member in which case you also don’t have to testify.
            3. It would go against your professional secrecy

            But you have to testify against a friend.

            I just looked it up and it’s exactly the same in the US. So you also can be force to testify in Murica

            • Johanno@feddit.de
              0·
              1 year ago

              You don’t have to testify against your fianceé. So if you engage with your friend right before the court you don’t have to testify. You can break up right after. Happens a lot apparently

              • newIdentity@sh.itjust.works
                1·
                1 year ago

                Nah. You have to testify against your fiancé. You just don’t have to testify against your wife. So you need to marry.

                Edit: Nvm, but you can’t break up directly after that.

          • krische@lemmy.world
            1·
            1 year ago

            Well I’d imagine I’d go like anytime someone doesn’t follow a court order; you get jailed and/or fined in contempt of court.

  • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    5·
    1 year ago

    I once crossed off something I didn’t like on a contract and the boss scolded me and put a fresh new one in front of me while printing out yet another one.

    • zkikiz@lemmy.mlEnglish
      17·
      1 year ago

      All contracts are negotiable, you did nothing wrong other than not having a conversation before wasting paper, the main issue is that for most people the negotiation is “if you want to work here you have to agree to all this.”

      But yeah reasonable accommodation and mutual understandings, etc, should be written down and signed. I challenged the non-disclosure agreement at my job once because it literally said I couldn’t talk about my work with ANYONE, and a plain reading of it would mean I’d be unable to even talk to my boss about what I was supposed to be doing. It was poorly written and probably unenforceable. My boss didn’t like that so I signed it anyway and then focused on finding work elsewhere (he was a dick and his company got raided by the FBI a few years later)