Witness impeachment

Okay kiddo, so let's pretend you're telling a story about your day at school and your teacher asks your friend if your story is true. Your friend says "no, that's not what happened." This means your friend is impeaching, or disagreeing with, what you said.

In a trial, a witness is someone who tells the court what they saw or heard. But sometimes, a witness might not tell the truth or might not remember things correctly. So, a lawyer might try to "impeach" the witness, or show that what they are saying might not be true.

This can be done in a few ways. For example, the lawyer might show that the witness has said something different before, called "prior inconsistent statements." Or, the lawyer might show that the witness has a reason to lie, called "bias." The lawyer might also show that the witness doesn't have a good memory, called "imperfect recollection."

Impeaching a witness is important because the jury needs to know if the witness is telling the truth or not. By impeaching a witness, the lawyer is trying to show the jury that the witness might not be telling the truth, so the jury shouldn't trust everything they say.