KISSing the jury·- advantages and limitations of the 'keep it simple' principle in the presentation of expert evidence to courts and juries

Abstract

Initiatives by groups such as the 'Plain English Movement', which strive to render legal language comprehensible to the lay-person caught up in legal or judicial processes, might eventually include an appraisal of the problem of the language of expert evidence, which almost inevitably involves a trade-off between accessibility and scientific precision. The expert sitting quietly in the laboratory analysing forensic evidence, and then writing up a report, is often both physically and psychologically far removed from the court. Further, under the adversarial system 'the court' is not a single, simple entity, it involves a disparate array of participants: judge, jury, prosecutor, informant, defence counsel, opposing expert, pen writer or transcriber, defendant, and increasingly, interpreter. Each of these participants has the right to hear or view evidence in a form which ensures that it and its significance will be thoroughly understood. In this paper, I discuss the form and nature of forensic language both as a linguist and as an expert witness.