Sworn Statement For A Family Gift: Fill & Download for Free

I’m going to take the liberty of dividing your question into its three component parts and then address each part separately.“Does Judge Judy regularly violate the rules of evidence that apply to most trial courts in the United States?”“Would a notarized witness statement of the sort we usually see on Judge Judy constitute admissible evidence in most trial courts in the US?”“Would a cell phone text message of the sort we usually see on Judge Judy constitute admissible evidence in most trial courts in the US?”The short answers to your questions are: (1) Yes. (2) No. (3) Yes.(1) Does Judge Judy regularly violate the rules of evidence that apply to most trial courts in the United States?Do dogs bark?Judge Judy’s evidentiary rulings bear very little resemblance to the actual Rules of Evidence that govern most trials in US courts.She routinely admits evidence that should be inadmissible at trial.She routinely rejects evidence that should be admissible at trial.Evidence law is one of my specialty areas. I’ve taught the subject many times in my capacity as a law school professor. Whenever Judge Judy comes on, I drive my family up the wall by giving them a running play-by-play commentary on all the erroneous evidentiary rulings Judge Judy makes. I keep telling them I’m going to get myself a set of mini-nerf balls and start throwing balls at the TV set whenever Judge Judy makes a blatant error.Judge Judy treats the hearsay rule, in particular, with reckless abandon.I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard her reject a proffered piece of evidence by labeling it “inadmissible hearsay” when the evidence was not hearsay at all.I’ve also lost count of the number of times I’ve heard her reject a proffered piece of evidence by labeling it “inadmissible hearsay” when the evidence was actually admissible hearsay. (If your only source of information about the hearsay rule was Judge Judy, you might get the impression that all hearsay is automatically inadmissible. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. The Federal Rules of Evidence contain 28 separate categories of admissible hearsay evidence.)I’ve also lost count of the number of times I’ve seen her conveniently disregard the fact that a proffered piece of evidence was inadmissible hearsay if the evidence was something she wanted to see.How concerned should we be about the fact that Judge Judy seems to regard the Rules of Evidence as being optional?Actually, not very concerned. Judge Judy is an arbitrator, not a judge.When parties opt out of the regular court system and choose instead to hire a professional arbitrator, one of the things they’re opting out of is the court system’s formal procedural rules. It’s not unusual for arbitrators to ignore the Rules of Evidence whenever they find it convenient.The fact that Judge Judy ignores the Rules of Evidence whenever she finds it convenient doesn’t bother me. Most other arbitrators do the same thing. The thing about Judge Judy that makes me want to throw nerf balls at the TV set is the way she pretends she’s following the Rules of Evidence strictly and pontificates at length about how the Rules dictate all of her evidentiary rulings, when the reality is that she pays very little attention to the rules at all.Let’s move on to the next part of your question.(2) Would a notarized witness statement of the sort we usually see on Judge Judy constitute admissible evidence in most trial courts in the US?No. Unsworn statements that are made in writing by a non-testifying witness, out of court, and presented at trial as evidence of whatever the witness says in the document are almost always inadmissible hearsay.You can’t cross-examine a piece of paper. And that’s why it can’t be admitted into evidence.In order for an unsworn written witness statement to be admissible in evidence, the statement would have to fall into an exception to the rule that makes hearsay evidence generally inadmissible. As I said previously, there are 28 categories of admissible hearsay, but witness statements of the sort we usually see on Judge Judy would not fit into any of those exceptions.That fact that the document happens to be notarized does not matter at all. A notarized statement is not the same as a sworn statement. The only thing a notary public certifies is that the person who signed the document is the person whose name appears on the signature line.(3) Would a cell phone text message of the sort we usually see on Judge Judy constitute admissible evidence in most trial courts in the US?Yes. The difference between the written witness statements we usually see presented on Judge Judy and the text messages we usually see presented on Judge Judy is this:The written witness statements were created by third parties who cannot be cross-examined.The text messages were written by the opposing party.How many times have you heard something like this on Judge Judy?Plaintiff: The money was a loan, not a gift. Defendant promised to pay me $100 each month until the loan was paid off.Defendant: The money was a gift, not a loan. I never promised to pay the money back.At this point, Plaintiff hands Judge Judy her cell phone, the camera zooms in, and we see a text message written by the defendant: “I’m having money trouble this month. Can I give you $50 now, and then I promise to make it up to you by paying $150 in June?”Out-of-court statements like this one are very, very different from unsworn eyewitness statements made by third parties. The difference is that this statement came from the defendant.When the plaintiff uses the defendant’s own statement against him, the defendant looks a little silly if he tells the judge, “Your Honor, this statement shouldn’t be admitted because it might be unreliable. For all you know, I was lying.”Of course, the defendant is always free to challenge the out-of-court statement. The defendant can try to convince the judge that he never made the statement; he can claim the plaintiff spoofed the text message. The defendant can also try to convince the judge that he was lying or mistaken when he made the statement. But the statement is admissible.

Are both people residents of Pennsylvania?Is it a handgun or a long gun?Are the gift giver and recipient related?Do you know, without a doubt, that the gift giver is aware the receiver is a prohibited person?A legal face to face transfer in PA requires one of two sets of answers:Yes, long gun, (doesn't matter), noYes, handgun, yes, noThe first answer had to be yes, and the last had to be no. After that it is always legal to do a direct transfer of a (non-NFA) long gun. And you can directly transfer handguns between family members (including the “blue family”).This is the relevant tidbit:Transfers of handguns between spouses, parent and child, grandparent and grandchild or between active law enforcement officers are exempt from the above requirements. Rifles and shotguns may be transferred between unlicensed individuals.If you think this is going to be broken, then you should talk to the gift giver. Make sure they understand the law and that you'd rather not have your friend breaking the law.(I'm assuming they're a friend that is discussing their plan with you; otherwise the combo of “someone I know” and “might be planning” is about 200 yards past nosey and blatant hearsay that will make this unactionable for the police.)If they express that they will be breaking the law regardless of your input, and you're a believer in tough love, then you'd report this to the same people you'd report any other crime. Call the non-emergency number of your local police station and give them your tip. Do not call 911 or any other emergency number, this isn't an active emergency situation. Call in to give a tip or make a complaint/report and follow directions from there.But be warned: filling an official complaint is you making a sworn statement to an officer of the law and the courts. If you do so in bad faith, you will be the one guilty of a crime and sitting before the punishment of the law. So make sure you're certain what you're talking about before you start down this path.

I missed that memo from God.Oh, you mean that creation myth that the people who decided, centuries after it was first written down, to include with all the other myths, lies and occasionally beautiful truths, as part of their cannon of writings they deemed to be “God Breathed”?Biblical canon - WikipediaWell I believe that's not true because it is so preposterous, that the other thing I have a lot trouble believing, is that anyone else actually does believe it.I don't believe the myth that Cherokees have, which is that the Smoky Mountains were created by the flapping wings of an enormous Raven either.The thing is, the Cherokees understand it's a myth, as do I, but at least it's a beautiful one.EDIT: And I will add something here that I hope you will think aboutMy wife’s family are Mormons. Their religion was founded by a guy—barely an adult by then, who was a treasure hunter (literally), a con artist, and habitually told gigantic, grandiose lies that a lot of people—gullible people—believed.He said that angels had visited him when he was alone outside somewhere, and they had given him “Golden Plates” which had, inscribed on them the story of “the lost tribe of Israel” which, thanks to Joseph Smith, we now know had made their way to North American. FYI, genetic testing shows otherwise. Native Americans descend from Asians.The writing on the plates was in a language of Angels, or something like that anyway. So instead of going out and plowing fields and doing a lot of other manual labor. He sat around with a “Soothstone” and a pair of magical spectacles that, when he wore them, enabled him to read this very special writing and one of his gullible followers sat there and wrote it out as JS dictated it to him.In this way he got at least two very significant benefits.He didn’t have to do any more physical labor and,He got laid a lot.Eventually he finished, and the Angels took the plates back, still unseen by anyone, including the guy who made up this whole ridiculous story.Here's the thing that I want you to pay very close attention to.I once went on a road trip with some of my adopted Mormon family (and please understand, they are wonderful people and I love every one of them) and we went the Salt Lake City, where the main Mormon temple stands, in all of it’s glory. Of course someone like me would never be allowed anywhere near the inner sanctum of that temple. But they had a big museum of Mormon “history”, which I walked through while my mother-in-law explained it all to me. One thing I remember very clearly was a beautiful painting of Joseph Smith, seconds before he was shot to death by an angry lynch mob.In that painting he has a beatific look on his face; like the one that I imagine Steven from the “original” bible must have had when people started picking up rocks, and stoned him to death.It’s a very beautiful, if sad, scene;and it is complete bullshit.The disturbing thing though, is how I originally came to know that it was bullshit. It was during the same trip. My wife and I stayed with two of her relatives, an aunt and uncle. Well, Sunday rolled around while we were there and I was not about to go to Church with them. I had already tried that a few times by then, and learned that the anger it generated in me was just not something I needed to be invoking.So, here I am, sitting at her aunt and uncle’s house, and her uncle was “way high up” in the Mormon church, and he had a whole set of books that told the “story of the Mormons, not the story about the lost tribe of Israel, and their epic Journey, first by boat, and then on foot, across the desert, but things that happened during Joseph Smith’s lifetime, and later.One of the books gave the account of Joseph Smith’s murder. It seems that when the guys with guns showed up, he jumped out of a window and landed in a horse watering trough I believe. I can’t remember now if he died from the impact, or from drowning, or if somebody just walked downstairs and out the front door, and then just shot him.What I know, absolutely to be true, is that at some point the LDS (Mormon) church decided to do some revising, and let me tell you, the “history” depicted in their little temple museum (and yes, gift shop) is utter bullshit.Another interesting thing, is that if you open “The Book of Mormon”, one of the first things you will see, is a page where maybe a half dozen people have signed a sworn statement that they had seen the plates (I neglected to mention that somehow he had conned quite a few people into not only taking his word about everything, but also to tell bold faced lies n order to serve the common good.What you don’t see in the Book of Mormon, is any mention of that fact that most, if not all of them later recanted their stories and said that no, they never saw any golden plates.It boggles my mind that that church has the balls to do things like that, but they do.So the point with that story is that LDS gives us an excellent , real life, view of a church being born, and working out it’s story—deciding what is and isn’t God’s word and then practicing some incredible “truth laundering” which most of the LDS church members slurp up like Kool Aid; not even thinking about it enough to decide what flavor it is.This, what I just described, is how books claiming to be God’s Word come to exist. They don’t just pop up all at once, out of nowhere They evolve over time and things are added, subtracted or changed as time goes on.But so, so, so many people are perfectly content to just assume that the Bible is what everyone at church has told them it is. And honestly, it just really is not. In these days of Google and Wiki, etc. It is trivially easy to prove what I am saying—and worse—but still the devout Mormons stick to their beliefs in the face of all doubting and questioning on the part of others and, of course, they do this in spite of well tested and peer reviewed, detailed, studies—like the very consistent, repeatable tests that have been done, that have confirmed that Native Americans are what a group of Asians became over the course or, I’m not sure how many centuries—a lot.If you can’t stop and consider for a moment how much (totaly) you rely on people, and the Bible itself, when they assure you that the Bible is God’s Word then there really isn’t much left to talk about.The Bible is simply one of many books (or scrolls, or clay tablets, etc.) That claim to be “God Breathed”, while the scientific evidence that contradicts so many of these fairy tales just keeps piling up, and piling up and piling up.If you start conversations with atheists about religion, or atheism, and you insist on stipulating right off the bat, that “THE” BIBLE (there are lot’s and lot’s and lot’s of different versions of “the” Bible), is God’s Word, and then proceed to attempt to build your case for Christianity using only the Bible as your source, then that means that you know little, if anything about Critical Thinking, or even just logical “thinking”I used to be one of those “Born Again”, “on fire” Christians who did exactly that. I was seventeen, and it only took me a few years of reading from the Bible every single day to realize that, while it does have some good and beautiful things in it, it is, essentially, a book of Fairy Tales. A lot of people complain about the violence inherent in many Fairly Tales. But all the ones I have ever heard are rated G—easily—compared to some of the stuff in the Bible.I hope you think about some of this a little bit. Maybe you only have one life that you get to live, and try to get the most happiness out of before you disappear from the Universe.Seems to me that it would be a a pretty bad thing to waste that life by basing it on a bunch of violent and often mediocre fairy tales.