Ken Starr Fails Deposition 101

How can a lawyer screw something up this badly?

Screenshot of Ken Starr's impeachment testimony... when he used to remember how this works.

Screenshot of Ken Starr’s impeachment testimony… when he used to remember how this works.

Ken Starr’s gotten a lot of flack over his fitness to teach law over the last few days, but his baffling string of botched interviews provides the most compelling argument against his legal chops yet: does he not understand depositions? Because this latest media monstrosity on KWTX fails Depositions 101.

Obviously media interviews are not formal depositions, but that makes it all the more crucial that Starr invest the modicum of effort required to master the basic ground rules of a deposition before committing his furious backpedaling to video. The first rule of “Deposition Club” is to tell the truth, and the second rule is not to speculate about ANYTHING because whether or not you realize it, when you engage in hypotheticals you’re no longer answering the question strictly truthfully.

Which is why this was so bizarre. The full video is below, but if you can’t watch it, Deadspin sets up the scene:

Reporters have previously been letting Starr stick to his talking points, regardless of the fact that many of them don’t match the facts. But during her sit-down interview with Starr, Julie Hays at KWTX confronted him about an email previously used in reporting by ESPN’s Outside the Lines. The email is from a woman who said she was raped by former Baylor football player Tevin Elliott, who was sentenced to up to 20 years in prison for a separate sexual assault. The subject line is “I Was Raped at Baylor,” and the list of people it was sent to includes Starr.

To which Starr replies, “I honestly may have. I’m not denying that I saw it.”

No, no, no, no. You either saw it or you don’t have any recollection. Jesus, man! You’re familiar with what can go wrong in videotaped depositions!

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I have all the sympathy in the world to the fact that university presidents receive hundreds of emails every day and cannot possibly acknowledge, much less act on, every one. Indeed, that’s why they have bureaucracies under them (that they are supposed to manage better than just assuming they’ve got everything covered because rape doesn’t happen at dry schools). But this answer implies that even if he had seen an email like this he still wouldn’t have done anything, which shows a frightening level of callousness.

This is what the broken higher education funding system has wrought — university presidents so focused, arguably by necessity, on negotiating television contracts and raising millions from alums, that they can’t really do the job of actually running a university. You know, the place where students go to hopefully learn something free from assaults and systematic campaigns to silence them. It’s time to put some more priority on that line item of the job description

That’s not to say that PR flack Mary Spaeth should have Streisand Effect-ed this whole thing by calling attention to the flub. It’s easier to say he misspoke later if it comes up than tell a news crew, “holy s**t he just made a mistake, let me take him outside and try to unf**k him.” That never works out well.

In any event, we’re eagerly awaiting the next Ken Starr interview. Perhaps Thinking Like A Lawyer?

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Question leads to awkward interruption during Starr interview [KWTX]
Ken Starr Faceplants When Confronted With Email Showing He Was Told About Rape At Baylor [Deadspin]

EarlierKen Starr’s Embarrassing ESPN Interview — How Can He Still Teach Law?
Ken Starr Fired — Can Still Teach ConLaw
Irony Alert: Ken Starr Should Lose His Job For Not Investigating Real Sex Crimes


Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.