There is no requirement that a witness account HAS to be judged either credible or not credible in its entirety. It is quite common that a witness remembers some aspects of an event correctly but other aspects incorrectly. Here is a typical instruction to a jury that spells this out.
CREDIBILITY OF WITNESSES
I remind you that it is your job to decide whether the government has proved the guilt of the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt. In doing so, you must consider all of the evidence. This does not mean, however, that you must accept all of the evidence as true or accurate.
You are the sole judges of the credibility or “believ- ability” of each witness and the weight to be given to the witness's testimony. An important part of your job will be making judgments about the testimony of the witnesses [including the defendant] who testified in this case. You should decide whether you believe all, some part, or none of what each person had to say, and how important that testimony was. In making that decision I suggest that you ask yourself a few questions: Did the witness impress you as honest? Did the witness have any particular reason not to tell the truth? Did the witness have a personal interest in the outcome of the case? Did the witness have any relationship with either the government or the defense? Did the witness seem to have a good memory? Did the witness clearly see or hear the things about which he testified? Did the witness have the opportunity and ability to understand the questions clearly and answer them directly? Did the witness's testimony differ from the testimony of other witnesses? These are a few of the considerations that will help you determine the accuracy of what each witness said.
[The testimony of the defendant should be weighed and his credibility evaluated in the same way as that of any other witness.]
Your job is to think about the testimony of each witness you have heard and decide how much you
believe of what each witness had to say. In making up your mind and reaching a verdict, do not make any decisions simply because there were more witnesses on one side than on the other. Do not reach a conclusion on a particular point just because there were more wit- nesses testifying for one side on that point. You will always bear in mind that the law never imposes upon a defendant in a criminal case the burden or duty of calling any witnesses or producing any evidence.
https://www.lb5.uscourts.gov/juryinstructions/fifth/crim2015.pdf
i understand where you are coming from here Charles and what you say is not unreasonable at all , that is in the sense that you offered it IE in a court room setting .
however i was talking about in a forum setting such as this forum or other places where people discuss the assassination online . in that sense we are dealing with specific mentalities .
for example lets take Mr brown who posts on this site . im talking about Bill now as ive seen another Mr brown also . i wouldnt want to cause any confusion .
he has long stated for example that in essence he only accepts statements from witnesses made very close to the events in question . i mean statements made in the hours or just a few days after the event .i once saw him in a discussion , and his logic above came up . in that instance he was discussing Earlene roberts . as we know in the days after the event she would say that she heard a police car outside and the driver tooted the horn . this was some thing that i do not believe she had any reason at all at the time to associate with Mr oswald , but 5 or 6 days later she mentioned it . Bill took exception to that , i cant recall the exact wording of the post now but in essence he said that as she only said what she said near to a week after the tragic events in dallas that he didnt believe her . remember now this is just days after the event . later Bill would pop up and say Domingo Benavides positively identified Oswald as the killer . i knew that benavides certainly never IDed oswald on the day , at the time or even months later when testifying . so i enquired just for pig iron (just for fun ) exactly when Benavides made the statement now being attributed to him , well he made the statement several years AFTER THE EVENT . can you see what i am saying here ? , very simply an LN on one hand says that a statement made just days after the assassination is not acceptable but a statement made years after the assassination was because the person said what Bill liked . remember LN cite Earlene as a reliable witness who saw oswald come home , change and leave wearing a jacket , but now she is unreliable when she says something an LN doesnt like .
now this is in no way an attack on Bill at all , im just using this as a method to highlight LN logic .
another case is Wes frazier . obviously LN cite him to say Oswald had a long sack . but again when he talks about the sack being some 12 inches shorter than the 36 inch or more long sack in evidence LN suddenly question his reliability and even his IQ level . again it was Bill (not verbatim now ) if i recall correctly who in reference to Frazier said in essence that Frazier probably did not realize that 24 inches equals two feet . so another example of where a witness is credible and reliable when it suits LN , but then decidedly unreliable and lacking credibility when what they say does not suit LN .
how often do LN cite the word of Marina ? yet we know the many problems with her statements , not just that we have the redlich memo that tells is that she has been untruthful , and extremely contradictory in her statements . but LN still hang on her every word , that us until she starts saying oswald did not do it .
i could go on with examples . now as i said i am not attacking anyone here , not at all , i only mention Bill because i knew from here and on bob harris old forum . i am just giving examples of the LN logic .
