The Washington Post reports that U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton asked these questions of potential jurors in the Lewis Libby perjury trial:
--Is there anyone who believes that everyone's memory is like a tape recorder and therefore all individuals are able to remember exactly what they said and were told in the past?
--Is there anyone who feels that a person could not honestly say something about a matter he or she truly believed to be . . . true when that person several months earlier actually said something totally different about that same matter?
--Is there anyone who believes that it is impossible for a person to mistakenly believe that he or she was told something by one person when in fact the person was actually told the information by someone totally different several months earlier?
--Is there anyone who believes that it is absolutely impossible for a person to believe very strongly that he or she has certain memories about something, even though it is determined that those memories are inaccurate?
It's great to see a judge willing to ask questions like this, but I wonder whether this wording was helpful, especially since presumably the lawyers weren't able to follow up. Surely "Is there anyone who believes that everyone's memory is like a tape recorder?" was met with motionless silence. And by the time anybody figured out whether it was possible "for a person to mistakenly believe that he or she was told something by one person when in fact the person was actually told the information by someone totally different several months earlier," Judge Walton had to be several questions down the list.
