PrepTest 153, Section 1, Question 18
Criminal courts frequently rely on accomplice witnesses (witnesses(444 more words not shown)
According to the third paragraph,(16 more words not shown)
- Acurrent safeguards are(13 more words not shown)
- Bcurrent safeguards fail(12 more words not shown)
- Cjuries may not(19 more words not shown)
- Djurors tend to(14 more words not shown)
- Eprosecutors are typically(12 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Stay with the third paragraph. Its problem isn't just that witnesses have incentives; it's that the jury may never hear about them. The courts say jurors can assess a witness's motives. But when a prosecutor only implies a benefit, the exchange need not be disclosed. We should predict that missing information prevents the safeguard from doing its job.
Working the answers
- A
The safeguards are supposed to protect the accused from false testimony. Their weakness isn't that they were designed for the wrong people.
- B
The paragraph explicitly begins by saying courts recognize the unreliable nature of bartered testimony. Recognizing the danger doesn't mean their proposed protections solve it.
- CCorrect
An implied offer can lead a witness to expect a reward without requiring disclosure to the jury. Jurors cannot properly assess an incentive they haven't been told about. This identifies the specific gap between the courts' proposed safeguard and what can happen in practice.
- D
No comparison of the trust placed in witnesses and defendants appears in this paragraph. The problem is undisclosed incentives, not a demonstrated preference for one kind of speaker.
- E
Whether prosecutors are penalized for offering incentives isn't discussed. Don't confuse that with the earlier finding that lying informants are rarely prosecuted. Those are different people and different actions.
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