Andreyo 1

Richard Andreyo

English 102

MLA project final draft

29 Nov 2017

The Meaning of Truth

According to Aristotle, the high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what
people think. The law is always subject to interpretation by individuals in case-specific
circumstances. The law has many gray areas which may reduce the ability of granting clients
justice. People often seek from the law that which cannot be provided with any ethical guarantee
is the truth. Truth is that which is true in accordance with fact or reality. The purpose of legal
proceedings is to identify the true factual circumstances of any disputes, subject to principles of a
fair trial and maintaining public confidence in the judicial system.

Truth in the law means objective, reliable facts which will be submitted as evidence in a
trial. Our justice system is based on truth of what actually occurred in a dispute. The testimony
of eyewitnesses is subjective in court. Testimony by itself is not reliable in discovery of truth.
Peoples objective facts are dependent on the written testimony acquired at the time of dispute.
Testimony obtain later in legal proceedings are often filled with half-truths due to the time lapse
of memory. Justice based on witness testimony alone is haphazard at best. Judge and jury must
guess who is lying. Peoples testimony is susceptible to lies, clever arguments, false hunches,
publicity and political pressures (Losey). So the truth must be maintained with objective, reliable
hard facts in order for the truth to be achieved.

A person who is subject to principles of a fair trial will be facing the jury consisting of 6
to 12 people. The judge states the important criteria for judgment regarding reasonable doubt
to the jury members. A person life hangs in the balance of these men and women. The same
events may evoke different emotions in different people; even in just one person, the same event
may produce different emotions at different times, or conflicting emotions at the same time.
 Andreyo 2

Order requires a stable correlation between facts of dispute and the fact of jurys feeling
(Deutsch 636). As these twelve jurors deliberated behind closed doors, it is the jurys duty to
separate the truth from all the information provided in trial. Jurors are to separate themselves
from their feelings, personal prejudices and bias in order to display a fair trial for the truth.

The public confidence in the judicial system has to be maintained. The public will never
accept that justice can be attained by a forensic game. The public require a system dedicated to
the search for truth, subject only to the fairness of the process and consistency with other public
values (Spigelman 103). There is a range of principles and practices which are deliberate to
ensure a fair and truthful trial. The principle of a fair trial is manifest in numerous rules of
evidence and aspects of practice and procedure. They were adopted because of the susceptibility
of juries to improper influence (104). A justice without the truth is not justice in the eyes of our
judicial system.

The presumption of innocence is the most sacred principle in the American criminal
justice system. The defendant is innocent until proven guilty. The prosecution must prove,
beyond a reasonable doubt, each essential of the crime charged. The truth will set you free from
any wrongdoings. Society has attached a positive association to the ideology of truth. American
legal systems are designed to identify the factual truth of any disputes, subject the defendant to a
fair trial while maintaining public confidence in the law.