From the last time I saw this, what I understood was, the lawyer isn’t asking the witness if there’s a possibility the person in question was alive, the lawyer is trying to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person in question was not only undeniably dead, but also impossible for the person to be alive.
Source: my memory from a random comment on the internet, pay it forward
Yeah that makes sense. I used to work in a position where I had to testify in court regularly about the results of independent findings the court requested. There were often lines of questioning that were about establishing details. The questions seemed silly, but it wasn't about the specific pieces of information it was about establishing that "Thing A" was absolutely true (or false) as of a specific point on a timeline. I never had any fun exchanges like this though lol.
Would it really be (serious question, as I dont know a whole lot about legal matters)? My limited understanding was that perjury is lying under oath, and sarcasm, while it does involve saying untrue statements, isnt considered lying in everyday speech because what it actually communicates is the opposite of the literal meaning of the words. Since laws deal with humans and not computers, my assumption would be that it probably works in such a way as to depend on what message a person is actually communicating rather than the precise syntax by which they communicate it?
Sarcasm does not fly in court. Everything you say can and will be used against you. You do not have to be the defendant for that to apply. I sat through a lot of civil cases. Most of the people who lost, lost because they were being sarcastic. Sometimes, their LAWYER would take up this attitude, but judges are people, and they DO NOT like attitude. I was specifically a witness and sat through a lot of cases. This hit home for me.
He's an expert who's probably old and sick of answering questions like this because even if they're (idiotically) technically necessary, they sound incredibly stupid.