Donald Trump Accused of Rape and "Depraved Sex Acts" in Civil Lawsuit

[RiverNoord]

78. I hate to do this, but...

I'm a lawyer, and discovery doesn't work that way at all.

Discovery is a process by which a party in a lawsuit may demand material, information, whatever might be in the possession of the adverse party that might tend to yield evidence in favor of the positions in the lawsuit of the party making the discovery request.

Outside parties have no rights whatsoever to participate in discovery.

If a woman is seeking damages as a consequence of a claimed sexual assault, in a civil court setting, that woman might be able to demand, say, a forensic inspection of the area where the alleged assault took place, to be conducted by an expert that the court deems competent on the subject, a diary that the claimant has reason to believe might contain relevant references, etc. And the opposing party could make discovery demands such as, oh, telephone bills that might indicate that the claimant was in a telephone conversation with a friend at the same time that the alleged assault took place.

Also, courts only have power to enforce discovery requests made against parties themselves. Other procedures exist for parties to obtain any form of potential evidence from third parties. However, in civil court, third parties are generally not obliged to provide any such evidence to a party, except under very unusual circumstances.

So discovery is all, and only, about what the parties can demand from each other.