Today, doing my job representing the District Attorney’s office in Frankfurt in a minor criminal case of fraud, I had to evaluate the testimony of a dentist. I’m purposely not saying that I do not like dentists. I love the people. I just don’t like the institution. They bring a lot of pain, which is why I believe that our teeth would be all okay if we did not go to see a dentist. Sorry. Back to my point. Probably largely based on my sophisticated theory on dentists, I simply did not believe my (I suppose Porsche-driving) dentist witness, who sat in front of me. I just didn’t. Yes, there were certain facts that supported my suspicion and I presented them in my closing argument, but I thought of all the criminal (previously convicted) witnesses we, people like myself and the judge, did not believe. It is not too tempting to state that a witness from the Upper East Side with a tie (or a Stanford degree) might be more convincing than a methadon addict from Hoboken. I know that this might be, to a certain extent, human. And so we might not be able to entirely erase this from the criminal justice system. But we should probably reconsider.
The one thing that I don't like about dentists is that instead of asking "is this thing that I'm doing to your mouth painful?", they say "is that area of your mouth sensitive?" Of course it is...and it is painful
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