“Taking The Stand As A Expert Witness”

Here's a question. There is a school of thought that says if you were speeding even a little bit, then as a defendant, you shouldn't put yourself on the stand.

What if you were qualified to be an expert witness? Could you put yourself on the stand as a radar expert or accident reconstruction guy or automotive engineer? Could you put yourself on the stand to give testimony in those areas but not put yourself on the stand to testify about the driving?

That seems a little irregular to me. Might make the judge scratch his head.

When you put yourself on the stand you open the door to all sorts of questions. So to assume you will be asked one set of questions and not another would be somewhat unrealistic.

The question is, what type of an expert do you consider yourself to be? And assuming the JP agrees with your opinion of you being an expert, can you navigate through the rest of the questions asked without perjuring yourself?

At the end of the day, as a driver, in the real world, the truth is, some times you need to accelerate in order to avoid a collision, breaking is not always the right solution, granted this is a very small percentage of the time, but it does happen. However, in the view of the law speeding is an absolute offence and never OK.

@rank - Another good question I don't know the answer too!

I am inclined to believe that once you are on the stand, regardless of the reason you got on it, then they can ask you anything and you must answer truthfully. So I don't think you can be on the stand as an expert witness only but not as the driver. I could be wrong on that, but that is just my thoughts.

Can I compel a witness to appear in court?

Example:

I want the Crown to disclose the certain mechanical aspects of the police car. They will likely refuse. Can I summon the mechanics that work on the police cars?

Example:

I want the testimony of an accident reconstruction specialist but I don't want to pay for one. Can I summon the detachment's resident specialist?

rank wrote:Can I compel a witness to appear in court?

Example:

I want the Crown to disclose the certain mechanical aspects of the police car. They will likely refuse. Can I summon the mechanics that work on the police cars?

Example:

I want the testimony of an accident reconstruction specialist but I don't want to pay for one. Can I summon the detachment's resident specialist?

You can compel someone to attend if they are an actual witness to your offence, but not to give expert testimony.