I hope by now, everyone knows I’m not a lawyer. I understand that words are very important in the law, however. So, I can accept the judge’s ruling in the Trooper Higbee trial that “normal” and “usual” and “abnormal” and “unusual” do not mean the same thing in the law.

But what I don’t understand is why non-lawyer jurors (like me) should be sent into deliberations thinking that an expert witness who spoke of what was not “unusual” about an intersection did not include in his report a reference to a “not normal” aspect of that same intersection.

My apologies for all the double negatives, but something about listening to a catalog of case law on these two common words has warped my language into something rather abnormal.

The problem, it seems, is that a prosecution expert witness responded to a question about whether he found anything unusual about the intersection in the negative. However, in a written report this same expert witness characterized the placement of a stop sign as “not normal.”

The judge has ruled that the defense may not cross-examine the witness about his written characterization, because—apparently—the report misused a legal term (the witness is not a lawyer). Apparently, he should have characterized the stop sign’s placement as “unusual.”

And this seems to be an important issue, because the statement is part of a report that the prosecution is using against the defendant. As an observer, it seems to me (a non-lawyer) that the court is intentionally withholding exculpatory information from the jury. I just don’t understand how a quibble over words furthers the cause of justice.

And this is why I’m sure that many judges and many lawyers fear jurors. We simply don’t speak the same language. I acknowledge that the judge knows what he’s talking about. He read aloud extensively from case law to justify his ruling.

However, as far as courtroom rhetoric goes, I wonder if the jury isn’t getting the message, anyway. They may perceive the repeated sidebars surrounding some of this expert’s testimony as an attempt by the defense to have this witness tell them something, which the prosecutor and judge don’t want them to hear. Believe me—when you’re sitting in a jury room waiting endlessly for the judge to call you back into the courtroom, you know something important is happening in there that no one wants you to hear.

It’s one of those incredibly irritating gaps I’ve written about several times. It should be clear by now to the jury that this expert—a trooper himself—has something to say that he isn’t being permitted to say. It may not be clear, though, what it is.