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• Beyond the Bench Podcast, Season 2: Episode 3 — The Trial: Adjudicating Neglect

  This entry was contributed by Sara DePasquale on December 2, 2016 at 6:00 am and is filed under Child Welfare Law.

  Episode 3, “The Trial: Adjudicating Neglect,” for our Beyond the Bench Season 2 podcast is available now! This episode picks up where episode 2 ended, with the adjudicatory hearing for alleged child neglect in our two different cases. Spoiler Alert! There are different outcomes.

  Listed in order of appearance, featured guest interviewees include:

  • Honorable J. Corpening II, Chief District Court Judge, Judicial District 5 (New Hanover and Pender Counties)
  • Honorable Cheri Siler-Mack, Judicial District 12 (Cumberland County)
  • Jamie Hamlett, Staff Attorney, Alamance County Department of Social Services
  • Dorothy Hairston Mitchell, Assistant Clinical Professor at NC Central School of Law Juvenile Law Clinic, and Parent Attorney, and
  • Honorable Denise Hartsfield, Judicial District 21 (Forsyth County).

  You can listen to this episode, along with episodes 1 and 2 if you missed them, on our podcast website or through Itunes and Stitcher. I hope you like it. Please share your feedback and don’t forget to leave a review if you listen through Itunes or Stitcher.

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• Use of deposition testimony at trial

  This entry was contributed by Ann Anderson on November 9, 2016 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Civil Procedure-General.

  Depositions are primarily a discovery tool.  When it comes to trial, live witness testimony is “more desirable,” Investors Title Ins. Co. v. Herzig, 330 N.C. 681, 690 (1992), and Rule of Civil Procedure 43 states that, “[i]n all trials the testimony of witnesses shall be taken orally in open court, unless otherwise provided by these rules.”  In “sharply limited” circumstances, however, deposition testimony may be used at trial, Warren v. City of Asheville, 74 N.C. App. 402, 408 (1985), and Rule 32 of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure sets out (most of) those circumstances.

  Under Rule 32, deposition testimony may be used at trial if it meets three criteria:

  • It is being used against a party who was present or represented at or had reasonable notice of the deposition;
  • It falls within one of the categories in Rule 32(a)(1) through (a)(4); and
  • It is admissible under the Rules of Evidence (applied as though the witness were present and testifying).

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