No witnesses at Senate trial - lies by omission
No witnesses at Senate trial - lies by omission
https://parade.com/86289/marilynvossavant/telling-the-truth-02/
Telling the Truth
September 2, 2009 - 9:15 AM - 0 Comments
Marilyn vos Savant
By Marilyn vos Savant
Alano Gray (New York, New York) writes:
Marilyn: Ive been working in a legal environment for ten years. Believe it or not, most attorneys cannot explain the difference between the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You once wrote a brilliant definition of what differentiates them, but Ive been unable to locate it in your archives. Can you repeat it?
Marilyn responds:
Heres the original question and answer, abbreviated:
Ed Hausafus of Eagle Creek, Oregon, writes:
Marilyn: When swearing in witnesses, court clerks ask them to promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. What is the difference between the three? And if there is none, why dont they just ask witnesses to promise to be truthful?
Marilyn responds:
Theres a difference. And the truths are all stated explicitly because some people try to weasel out of promises while still insisting that theyve kept them. First, witnesses are asked to tell the truth. This means that they must not lie in response to a question.
Second, theyre asked to tell the whole truth. This means something else. For example, if a governor says that in my state, weve moved 17,000 people from welfare to work and omits adding the fact that in his state, 25,000 other people moved from work to welfare at the same time, he has told the truth but he hasnt told the whole truth. That is, the net effect was that 8,000 more people were on welfare, not 17,000 fewer.
Third, witnesses are asked to tell nothing but the truth. This is yet another concept. For example, if a person tells the truth in response to a question and then adds a lie, he or she has told the truth but he hasnt told nothing but the truth. And although none of this will stop truly dishonest people, at least it gives us good ammunition to charge them with perjury.