What is a good time then, if at any time up to the closing argument, you can be “trumped”?
Appeal?
Got it. We got told that we were allowed to use the testimony and our judgment to evaluate the credibility of testimony - so I’d guess that you’d be in your rights to think Cliff is a damn liar. IANAL etc.
I was on a jury in a civil suit about a woman claiming she had been injured by an elevator. One prospective juror was an engineer who had given expert testimony on similar cases. He said, quite honestly, that he would be unable to toss his knowledge (specialized, not secret) if one side or the other made incorrect claims about engineering, even if not rebutted by the other.
He was excused.
The way I always handled situations like this for a motion for a directed verdict at the end of the Prosecutor’s case.
I have no legal knowledge to contribute to the question, but I would be horrified that a court has the power to assume, and treat as fact, that someone was drunk before the accident just because “Come on, if he went to get more booze after an accident he must’ve been drunk already”.
I’d be interested in the answer to the exact question in the thread title though. For example, in the movie “12 Angry Men” they seem to deduce quite a lot of information that apparently wasn’t discussed at trial; should they instead have reported that information and allowed the court to discuss it, rather than just the jurors?
EDIT: question answered in a small post I missed first time round.
The procedure will likely vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but two possible options would be at the close of the prosecution’s case, and in closing arguments to the jury.
Once the prosecution closes its case, defence normally has the option of a motion for non-suit - a motion to the judge alone, arguing that the prosecution has not introduced any evidence relating to an element of the offence. Since it’s not the judge’s job to weigh the evidence, the standard is high: the defence has to convince the judge that there is no evidence on that point, not just weak evidence. However, if the judge is satisfied that there is no evidence on a particular element of the offence, the judge can direct the jury to return a verdict of “not guilty”. Or, in the example given by ppr, the judge might say that in the absence of evidence of value of the stolen goods, the only offence that the jury can consider is petty theft.
However, if the judge is satisfied that there is some evidence, and dismisses the non-suit, the defence can still raise it as an issue at the close of the case, in addressing the jury, arguing that there is not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt about the value of the jewellry and art works. The jury then can consider the issue, and may acquit on that basis.
And, it’s generally not open to the prosecution to re-open their case once they’ve closed and the defence has begun. The onus is on the prosecution to prove the case to start with; if the defence starts poking holes in the prosecution’s case, they can’t try to repair their case by calling more evidence. That’s called “splitting the case” and is generally considered unfair to the defence, hence not allowed.
And now the setup for my question. Suppose Cliff Clavin is on trial for killing Carla ManyLastNames in a drunk driving accident, and he or his lawyer uses the I–was-so-rattled-by-the-accident-I-ran-to-a-convenience-store-for-another-beer defense. Suppose further that the prosecution addresses this argument only by trying to cast doubt on Clavin having actually gone to the convenience store for a six-pack before being arrested. Finally suppose that I, Skald, am the jury foreman, and during deliberations forcefully and persuasively make the argument that it doesn’t matter whether Clavin is telling the truth about the convenience store; if he reacted to the accident as he claims, he was probably drunk beforehand as well. This is something the prosecution did NOT argue during trial.
Is my doing so permissible? If Clavin is convicted and the other jurors attribute their “guilty” votes to my argument, and defense lawyer (John Cage, say) finds out, can that be used as grounds for overturning the verdict?
There is no reason why you have to check your life experience at the door when you serve. This is one reason why you are entitled to a jury of your peers. Making a logical argument that the defense attorney failed to make is perfectly permissible. However if you were to say that Cliff Clavin is a well known habitue of a bar called “Cheers” and is usually half in the bag by noon and that information was not presented at trial Clavin would probably be entitled to a new trial and you would probably be in big trouble for having lied about your knowledge of the defendant during voir dire.
Meaning?
MOUANLawyers
(Most of us are not …)
A “directed verdict” is another term for a “non-suit”, as I discussed in post 46, above.
True but irrelevant. I’ve never denied that jurors may not introduce new evidence; the question was about interpreting evidence with an argument that neither side made during trial.
Sorry. If the prosecutor doesn’t put at least some evidence of each element of the offense before the jury, the judge can (and should) throw out the case before it gets to the jury. Sometimes the forget to establish the value of the property, sometimes the date of the offense. In a drug case, for example, if the prosecution doesn’t have a lab test saying the white substance actually was cocaine, no jury could convict and the case would be thrown out.
To the OP. If the jury doesn’t do it’s own investigation (on line included) it can decide the case for almost any reason it wants. Most jurisdictions prevent challenging the verdict based on how the deliberations went down. (absent misconduct)
[quote=“Skald_the_Rhymer, post:50, topic:645725”]
True but irrelevant. I’ve never denied that jurors may not introduce new evidence; the question was about interpreting evidence with an argument that neither side made during trial.[/QUOTE
And I said the jury may do so.
There is no obligation on the part of the prosecutor or the defense attorney to interpret the evidence for the jury. They usually do so in the form of their opening and closing arguments, but they are not obligated to do so. They merely present the evidence and it is up to the jury to come to a conclusion about guilt. If you like legal thrillers you can check out “Lincoln Lawyer.” He gives a fairly good explanation of this.
So how can the defence introduce their argument?
Obviously if Cliff gets on the stand and says “I was not drunk beforehand, but I went for a beer after” - these points and their resulting cross-examination can be believed or disbelieved by the jury.
Let’s say Cliff declines to testify.
All the prosecutor presents is the BAC reading at arrest. No indication CLiff ran over to the convenience store for a beer, no testimony from the clerk, no security footage.
Questions:
I assume the defence attorney cannot baldly state “He went to the store afterwards” - it has to come out in testimony?
He could ask the arresting officer - “the bottle you found -could it have come from the store across the street after the accident”?
I assume the jury can simply conclude - no clerk, no security video, we conclude there is insufficient evidence given us the late beer run really happened…?
Can the defense in their summary assert"there was a window of time between A and B where the defendant could have run out and bought a beer after the accident." and yet provide no evidence to support that option?
I just completed jury service on a DUI case (not manslaughter, just DUI.)
During cross examination of the defendant, the prosecutor asked if it was true that he had been tailgating another vehicle. The defendant denied it, saying there was no traffic on the road at the time. “It was a Sunday afternoon and everybody was home watching the Patriots.”
In deliberation, one of the jurors pointed out that the offense was in April, long past the end of the pro football season. The prosecutor had not raised such a point.
While this was not directly related to the charge, it did lower our opinion as to the accuracy of anything the defendant said.
There was other concrete evidence that he was DUI (failed a breathalyzer test, on a breathalyzer that had been calibrated one week before) and we convicted based on that.
Attorneys are not permitted to testify and are not permitted to argue facts that are not in evidence. But they can argue that the prosecution failed to meet its burden of proof. The arresting officer could be asked if the bottle could have been purchased after the accident. At which time the prosecutor would call witnesses to show that that was not the case. The prosecutor can also present evidence to show that whether or not he bought the beer afterward does not mean he was not drunk at the time. But, again, only if some evidence of that fact exists, e.g. an expert opinion that defendant’s blood alcohol could not have been as high as it was after only one beer immediately after the accident.
But yes the defense can argue that there was a window of time, but only if there is evidence to support it e.g. the officer stating that yes the defendant left the scene for ten minutes and was seen with a bottle immediately thereafter.
“I assume the defence attorney cannot baldly state “He went to the store afterwards” - it has to come out in testimony.”
You are correct.
I assume the jury can simply conclude - no clerk, no security video, we conclude there is insufficient evidence given us the late beer run really happened…"
This is exactly what juries do. They examine the evidence presented, the evidence not presented, believability of presenters etc. and make their decision.
I served on a jury years ago involving an older Jewish woman in San Diego who was dealing meth out of a two bedroom apartment. The police came to her door after the owner of some jewelry made a scene in the middle of the night because her boyfriend had exchanged it for meth. She opened the door and let the police in where they found meth on the coffee table, one bedroom full of stolen merchandise, and the other bedroom (where she lived) had what they called “pay and owe sheets”, that listed names, weights (presumably of drugs), and stolen goods exchanged for those weights, along with scales, baggies, etc.
It looked like an open and shut case of a drug dealer being caught red handed, except none of us could figure out why she would just let the police in, when she could have just as easily flushed the drugs, while yelling “just a minute, I need to get dressed”. There was no indication she herself was a user, and honestly, an old Jewish grandmother doesn’t fit the profile of a drug dealer.
The defense attorney made no effort to claim the drugs belonged to some third party that wasn’t present, although that would almost have been believable given how cooperative she was when the police showed up, but that was suggested in the jury room. Then the question was, since the “pay and owe sheets” were clearly for the drugs and stolen merchandise, were they in her writing? No evidence was presented one way or another on that, and when we asked to hear the testimony again on that, we were told we had to hear ALL the testimony for the past three days if we wanted to hear that section. At that point we all agreed that was stupid and just convicted her of dealing, which was a far harsher crime than just possession. Still, I thought it was unfair we couldn’t just hear the part we wanted to hear, and an alternate theory of the evidence was suggested by the jury, so I can confirm that the you are allowed to do that. Whether that is the way it is supposed to happen is another matter…
See…
Now if I had been on that jury, the law proving itself to be a self-righteous ass would have encouraged me to acquit her. Saying “hear 3 days evidence or nothing” suggests to me the court or the prosecution does not want you to look at the evidence closely. If you don’t want me to do a good job, don’t be surprised at the job I do…
On what basis (any lawyers out there?) would the court have refused selective review of evidence?
how does that work anyway? Do they provide a transcript, or does the court reporter read back the transcript while you sit there?
Could you ask to see her arrest records or any other evidence which was definitely her handwriting? Could you ask to re-examine the ledgers entered in evidence? Did they enter evidence where people testified they had actually done transaction with her personally? On was it simply thats he was “in possession of all the accoutrements of the occupation”?
I would think that looking at the two pieces and saying “the handwriting does not match, even to a layman” falls in the category of bringing your life experience to the jury room. I know I’ve done handwriting matching more than a few times for various reasons in my life.
I would presume it is because any attempt to provide only a portion of the testimony could be seen to be sending the jury in a particular direction. It would seem to me that asking to see just “the pay and owe sheet testimony” would require someone to make an interpretation, which could be wrong, about exactly what you want. I strongly doubt that such a ruling is universally applied.