It depends on the necromancy.

Most forms of necromancy create a being under the control of their necromancer. In that case, the dead’s testimony would be worthless as the dead would be under the complete control of another.

Heh, this is a question addressed in fiction some.

There’s a qri, Laurell K Hamilton, that has a character that’s a necromancer that raises zombies for legal issues as part of her job.

And, while it may seem derivative (and I admit it is to a degree), My urban fantasy series is based around a forensic necromancer, who raises spirits, zombies, and otherwise applies his magic to legal issues.

Back in the day, I spent a couple years talking to cops, lawyers, and a few medical examiners in preparation for doing writing. I used that to address their objections to the idea in my stuff.

But, yeah, if certain barriers could be overcome, courts could accept testimony from an undead entity. It would likely end up appealed and chained challenged up to the top court in any given country, bit it’s possible

No necromancy spells require too much glitter. Think of the environmental impact.

It would depend on the type of necromancy, but at the end of the day, I think it would still be a conflict of interest since the person bringing them back would have great say, unless they are considered some type of expert witness necromancer.

Necromancy is the practice of magic involving communication with the dead by summoning their spirits as apparitions or visions for the purpose of divination; imparting the means to foretell future events and discover hidden knowledge.

The necromancer’s capacity to create minions and command them to fight for him or her is generally enough to satisfy even the most critical of viewers. As necromancers might easily be termed one-person armies, they are usually compelling and feared. The fact that they dabble in magic and the supernatural does not help their image as upstanding citizens.

Going with D&D’s version of necromancy… probably not. Undead have a strong and innate anti-life bias. Some intelligent undead are likely to be able to mask it, but without exceptionally strong wills will likely still act in a way that will cause the most death.

Non-undead ressurected individuals would likely be able to testify, however.

I think the most reasonable interpretation is that the law doesn’t currently recognize the undead as being people, let alone being the same person they were in life. It would need to be shown to be a reliable source of evidence, similar to any new technology that claims to offer insight into a case. A random judge might allow it, but it would be easy grounds for an appeal if it can’t be shown to do exactly what it claims to do.

DNA evidence was new once, but so was the polygraph. Only one of these is admissible, and for good reason.

What do you mean by “possible”? Most jurisdictions have a law against interfering with the dead / a corpse, and necromancy, while suddenly possible would therefore remain highly illegal.

Even if legalised, consider how often difficult decisions have to be made about whether to exhume a corpse to seek evidence of some sort. I can’t imagine it would be any easier to decide to have a corpse resurrected.

Habeas corpus takes on an entirely different bent, for sure.

There’s also the state of mind of someone who has been resurrected to take into account as well. There they were in oblivion or eternal rest or whatever it is that the dead experience and suddenly they’re dragged back to this mortal coil with thoughts, feelings and the knowledge they’ve been dead for a long time, and there’s living people who haven’t been through any of that throwing questions at them left, right and centre.

If it happened often enough, advocacy groups for the unwillingly resurrected would be set up. And more people would opt for cremation.

I mean, maybe but what will you do if they fail to appear before court? I don’t think the undead are super concerned with prison sentences

What recourse would there be against perjury?

imagine dying, and not even being able to enjoy death because you just keep being brought back to life to do stupid paperwork.

i’d stab myself and die right there, again.

The undead listen to a much higher authority than any mortal court. But that doesn’t stop the court from trying to summon them, but they might need a warrant wielding warlock to make it happen.

Only by gov’t-licensed necromancers, otherwise there’s a risk of witness tampering.

What type of necromancy is being used. If it’s from Dungeons & Dragons Fifth edition, you only get to ask them like 5 questions, and they don’t have to answer you. They can also potentially lie.

Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. I’d imagine that it would only get worse without the eyes.

Judging from the movie Rashomon, it wouldn’t actually resolve anything.