Reliability of a Witness

After presenting my case for the Ferguson shooting, I was struck by the fact that my first witness was not reliable at all. He changed his story three times throughout the one interview that was recorded. And, not only did he change it multiple times, but he changed significant factors of each story, making all of them sound very different from the other. From hearing all of the different stories, I realized how important every factor in a testimony really is. For example, my witness originally said that he heard 3 shots, but then changed in to nearly 10 after being asked about his previous interview that he had had. The huge difference in the amount of bullets having been shot can influence a case dramatically. My witness also said that he could see the entire interaction between Brown and Wilson from where he was in his car. But, after being asked about the distance between the two men, he then changed his story to be that he couldn't see everything, but he could see Brown's arms in the air. Having a witness that changes there story multiple times (1) makes them seem very unreliable and (2) makes it the new information hard to follow. Because I thought that my witness was so unreliable, I had to agree with the jury that Wilson should not be convicted of anything. If my witness had started out with the truth of what he saw, I think that I could have easily believed him and that might have been able to sway my opinions about the verdict. Overall, a reliable witness who tells the truth from the beginning is the most important of them all.