"I know for a fact"
This phrase is essentially meaningless. Isn't everything that we know a fact? The things that we think, believe, intuit, suspect, or guess may be opinions, beliefs, suppositions, fears, mistaken impressions, or lies, but the only things that the rational human mind can truly "know" are facts. But the converse is not true. Not all facts are known to us based on our own observation. Some we learn from other people.
The phrase can be meaningful only as an ironic pointer: the person who uses it almost invariably is not describing something that he has seen or observed, but rather something that he heard from somebody else, and often something that he fervently believes to be true for reasons of his own. Prick up your ears: The witness who swears that he knows something "for a fact" should be viewed very skeptically.
With every witness, there is a problem with hidden hearsay. The trial lawyer should be prepared to probe the witness with the implied or explicit question: How is it that you know what you tell us you know? For every fact given by a witness, we need to be prepared to inquire into the source of the knowledge. Much more often than we think, the source is one which, if fully developed through the attorney's examination, the court would not allow.
Q How long has Richards lived at the Balfour Street address?
A Three years.
Unless the witness himself has also been living near Richards for the whole three years, this answer is probably based on hearsay. This Q&A exchange does not exclude the possiblity that the witness heard yesterday from his crack dealer that Richards had been living there for three years. And the lawyer questioning the witness may want to paper over the fact that the testimony is essentially hearsay.
In ordinary speech, we seldom delve into the facts behind the assertion, those which disclose to us whether it is based on true knowledge and observation or on some other less reliable source of information. In the courtroom, we must ask those questions -- particularly when the witness says "I know for a fact that Richards has been living there for three years". That should immediately activate the lawyer's BS detector.
8:38:38 AM 
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