Truth on the Stand: Fragmented Consciousness & The Credible "Knower"

This essay interrogates the nature of fragmented testimony as evidence. I specifically explore cases of witness testimony that fall outside the domain of what is considered, in the mainstream, credible. My analysis begins with a grim fact about the nature of courtroom bias: survivors of trauma—and those who suffer from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or associated psychoses—are more likely to produce incoherent testimony and, as a result, are often discredited as sources of knowledge and truth. These particular speakers are attributed, what I term, a 'survivor-credibility-deficit' (a lack of credibility assigned to trauma survivors by those adhering to conventional indicators of epistemic integrity). While I explicitly use the term 'survivor' to refer to one who has suffered a trauma, it also, for the purposes of this essay, includes those who must bear the disorienting and often variable symptoms of mental illness.