The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

[JayUtah]

Eyewitness statements are a valid form of hard evidence in a court of law.

Are you a lawyer now too?

In the case of fact witnesses, only what the witness actually experienced with his senses is admissible. Conclusory or presumptive statements from a witness are precluded by rules of evidence. Here the witnesses heard and felt things, and drew conclusions about what had caused them. What they heard and felt is admissible. What they concluded "must" have caused it is not.

Witnesses are required in court even for such actually "hard" evidence as documentary evidence so that the origin, validity, and meaning of that evidence may be cross-examined by the opposing party. This an artifact of the adversarial process of a court trial, not a testament to the strength of eyewitness testimony. The whole point of cross-examination for eyewitnesses is to test just how "hard" that evidence is, and discover where it may have been supposed, misremembered, or fabricated.

 

[Vixen]

In fact.
None of them (unless I missed some) say they heard an explosion.

"- I was at a karaoke bar with a friend when I heard an unusual sound. I thought it sounded like an explosion. "

Denying survivors' life-threatening experiences is pretty disgusting IMV. No wonder so many of them suffered terrible PTSD. Several tried to contact JAIC to put forward their experiences and were mostly ignored and fobbed off.


Given this was a public transport accident, that is incredibly shoddy treatment IMV.

 

[Vixen]

Are you a lawyer now too?

In the case of fact witnesses, only what the witness actually experienced with his senses is admissible. Conclusory or presumptive statements from a witness are precluded by rules of evidence. Here the witnesses heard and felt things, and drew conclusions about what had caused them. What they heard and felt is admissible. What they concluded "must" have caused it is not.

Witnesses are required in court even for such actually "hard" evidence as documentary evidence so that the origin, validity, and meaning of that evidence may be cross-examined by the opposing party. This an artifact of the adversarial process of a court trial, not a testament to the strength of eyewitness testimony. The whole point of cross-examination for eyewitnesses is to test just how "hard" that evidence is, and discover where it may have been supposed, misremembered, or fabricated.

Unfortunately, the eyewitnesses were never allowed near a witness stand to be cross-examined.

Paul Barney says the JAIC never contacted him.

 

[JayUtah]

Don't tell me, 'You can't know this had happened if you had never experienced it before'.

Are you seriously claiming that going to a museum is equivalent to experiencing the events those exhibits depict?

Being able to identify the cause behind the perception of one's sense depends heavily on having experienced those sensations before while being sure one knows the cause. If you've never heard a steel cable part, for example, you might mistake it for a gunshot -- which is frequently mistaken because actual gunshots sound very different from how they're depicted in the media.

Here's perfectly valid to challenge the testimony of eyewitnesses who purport to identify the cause of their sensations.

 

[JayUtah]

Unfortunately, the eyewitnesses were never allowed near a witness stand to be cross-examined.

Don't deflect. Do you still claim that conclusory or presumptive statements from an eyewitness are admissible in court? Can you back that up?

 

[Vixen]

Are you seriously claiming that going to a museum is equivalent to experiencing the events those exhibits depict?

Being able to identify the cause behind the perception of one's sense depends heavily on having experienced those sensations before while being sure one knows the cause. If you've never heard a steel cable part, for example, you might mistake it for a gunshot -- which is frequently mistaken because actual gunshots sound very different from how they're depicted in the media.

Here's perfectly valid to challenge the testimony of eyewitnesses who purport to identify the cause of their sensations.

Oh dear. Now we are worried and trembling in our boots that the witnesses might have been mistaken. Quick, bury their witness statements! Bloody members of the public! Think they know more than us claims assessors.

 

[JayUtah]

Denying survivors' life-threatening experiences is pretty disgusting IMV.

Your "disgust" is irrelevant. You make this same sad argument over and over. That a witness suffered a life-threatening, traumatic incident does not change the way their statements are evaluated for evidentiary value. That evaluation is and must be dispassionate no matter how much passion you're trying to ladle onto it for rhetorical effect.

 

[Vixen]

Don't deflect. Do you still claim that conclusory or presumptive statements from an eyewitness are admissible in court? Can you back that up?

These statements are not hearsay. These were statements given to the police at or near the time of the accident. Survivors were kept separate and put in separate wards. So your insinuation that they fabricated their stories shows you are unaware of the circumstances these statements were taken in.


They are first hand accounts and not hearsay, nor tarnished by false memory.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

So in all those descriptions we have one who said a sound they heard was like an explosion and two who thought a sound was like a collision and you might as well have the one who thought it was like running aground.

From this you seem to want to recruit all the other statements to be supporters of your preferred explanation of the moment, whether that is explosion or collision.

On the other hand I see nothing there which makes me think their descriptions are inconsistent with the bow door breaking loose and hammering against the ship before falling away. This thread has gone around and around the reasons for explosives and collision being unlikely explanations so I really can't see any reason to imagine you can find a new way to restate these speculations which will make them any more persuasive.

 

[Vixen]

Your "disgust" is irrelevant. You make this same sad argument over and over. That a witness suffered a life-threatening, traumatic incident does not change the way their statements are evaluated for evidentiary value. That evaluation is and must be dispassionate no matter how much passion you're trying to ladle onto it for rhetorical effect.

Wow. So you think the JAIC burying the survivors' accounts was justified because members of the public travelling on public transport can't be trusted to be honest nor to understand that they didn't experience what they thought they experienced. No, siree. What they really experienced is what PM Carl Bildt said. Carl Bildt never mentioned no darn explosion nor crash.

 

[JayUtah]

These statements are not hearsay.

Straw man -- no one said they are. Hearsay is not the same as a conclusory statement.

So your insinuation that they fabricated their stories...

Straw man -- no one is claiming they are. False testimony is not the same as a conclusory statement.

They are first hand accounts and not hearsay, nor tarnished by false memory.

Some of their testimony is first-hand account. Some of it is also conclusions drawn by the witness regarding what may or must have happened. Those conclusions are not admissible in court, or useful testimony to a forensic investigator.

 

[erwinl]

"- I was at a karaoke bar with a friend when I heard an unusual sound. I thought it sounded like an explosion. "

Denying survivors' life-threatening experiences is pretty disgusting IMV. No wonder so many of them suffered terrible PTSD. Several tried to contact JAIC to put forward their experiences and were mostly ignored and fobbed off.


Given this was a public transport accident, that is incredibly shoddy treatment IMV.

Like an explosion. It sounded like an explosion.

[slight derail]
After 9/11 one of the firefighters (I think it was one of the firefighters) told there he heard a noise like a train coming at you. Now. Either the twin towers were demolished by one or more rogue Amtrack trains, or the firefighter in question described a sound he heard in words that reminded him of it.
[end of slight derail]

The operative word here is like.

 

[JayUtah]

Wow. So you think the JAIC burying the survivors' accounts was justified because members of the public travelling on public transport can't be trusted to be honest nor to understand that they didn't experience what they thought they experienced. No, siree. What they really experienced is what PM Carl Bildt said. Carl Bildt never mentioned no darn explosion nor crash.

Please address the arguments I actually make, and stop trying to shove words in my mouth.

 

[Vixen]

So in all those descriptions we have one who said a sound they heard was like an explosion and two who thought a sound was like a collision and you might as well have the one who thought it was like running aground.

From this you seem to want to recruit all the other statements to be supporters of your preferred explanation of the moment, whether that is explosion or collision.

On the other hand I see nothing there which makes me think their descriptions are inconsistent with the bow door breaking loose and hammering against the ship before falling away. This thread has gone around and around the reasons for explosives and collision being unlikely explanations so I really can't see any reason to imagine you can find a new way to restate these speculations which will make them any more persuasive.

I am sure it is very difficult for you to imagine the JAIC or PM Carl Bildt lied.

It was obviously the survivors who are a bunch of liars.

 

[JayUtah]

Oh please. The ship was 18,000 tonnage the bow visor just 55 tonnes.

Once the visor fell off and stopped moving forward, the relative motion of the ship possibly striking it as it scraped and bumped along the side would have considerable energy. I already computed it, and because of that I disagree with Prof. Amdahl's rejection of it as the source for various effects the witnesses have reported. Would you like to compute that energy for us?

 

[Vixen]

Like an explosion. It sounded like an explosion.

[slight derail]
After 9/11 one of the firefighters (I think it was one of the firefighters) told there he heard a noise like a train coming at you. Now. Either the twin towers were demolished by one or more rogue Amtrack trains, or the firefighter in question described a sound he heard in words that reminded him of it.
[end of slight derail]

The operative word here is like.

So what? If you and I are both at the same event and you describe it as 'being like a train rushing at you' and I describe it like a high speed wind, does it mean it never happened?

Someone with literary skills is often better at describing abstract concepts to a lay person by using likeness to more familiar every day events.

It doesn't mean the testimony is worthless.

 

[Vixen]

Once the visor fell off and stopped moving forward, the relative motion of the ship possibly striking it as it scraped and bumped along the side would have considerable energy. I already computed it, and because of that I disagree with Prof. Amdahl's rejection of it as the source for various effects the witnesses have reported. Would you like to compute that energy for us?

Don't be silly. It weighed 55 tonnes, was of irregular shape. It immediately sank. It did not hang around bullying the vessel and pounding at its hull.

 

[JayUtah]

Even the Rockwater divers said there was a lot of debris indicating a pile of bodies and damage on the starboard side.

Exactly where in the vicinity of the starboard side? Did the divers represent that they were able to exhaustively inspect the starboard side?

In 26 years it has only shifted 12°.

But if the original list was something like 120° to starboard, increasing that by 12° increases access to the starboard side. There is every reason to believe that later expeditions would have had more access to the side of the ship it was resting upon.

If there was an enormous impact to the starboard side caused by a collision then that is a massive omission by the JAIC.

Only if you can prove it was there all the time, was visible in the original expedition, and that they negligently or deliberately reported not seeing any. You seem to have started from the presumption that it was there, was visible, and that the JAIC set out from the start to deceive. That makes your case rather circular.

 

[JayUtah]

Don't be silly. It weighed 55 tonnes, was of irregular shape. It immediately sank. It did not hang around bullying the vessel and pounding at its hull.

I'm not being silly; I'm speaking from a position of experience and expertise. What is your evidence for any of this? How do you know it "sank immediately?" Have you ever been present when parts of ships are dropped into the sea? How do you account for scrapes and paint transfers from Estonia's hull found on the visor?

 

[JayUtah]

So what? If you and I are both at the same event and you describe it as 'being like a train rushing at you' and I describe it like a high speed wind, does it mean it never happened?

That's not the claim. Clearly something happened. But neither of our testimonies would be evidence that it was a literal train or a literal high-speed wind.

Someone with literary skills is often better at describing abstract concepts to a lay person by using likeness to more familiar every day events.

That's not the issue. The terms by which one chooses to characterize his sensory perceptions, no matter how prosaic, are separate from the facts one has actually experienced.

It doesn't mean the testimony is worthless.

Straw man. We're not claiming such testimony is worthless. The claim is that what the witness actually experiences and the images the witness might conjure up to precisely describe the experience have different evidentiary value.