Did the judge misspeak in open court?
3 min video
He’s aggravated by the delays. Trial was scheduled for Aug and now Jan. Both prosecution and defense have been jointly asking for more deposition time. Shooting took place in a movie theater and theres a lot of potential witness to depose.
No trial is going to be perfect. There have been cases before SCOTUS where the argument was “Yes, this is technically an error, but the trial should stand anyway because it’s not that big of an error” and SCOTUS upheld that argument.
My non-lawyer opinion is the judge just stated what everyone already knew and was telling both sides to get on with it already.
I think the judge was spot on, though from purely practical perspective, he would likely have been better off to have not used those words - or to have said nothing at all. But, my hat is off to him for clearly expressing himself publicly. I’d bet dollars to donuts the attorneys were nowhere near as candid.
Many people confuse “due” process with unlimited process. And many lawyers bridle at the idea of courts actually expecting them to comply with reasonable deadlines. I know of few lawyers who work other than at the last moment. Many (most?) view deadlines as mere suggestions, and conduct themselves as though a postponement or extension is always available.
You’d have to give me a detailed timeline of what had happened to date, and the lawyers’ efforts, before I’d begin to think the judge did anything wrong based on this short clip.
A trial should be fair, perfect is too high of a bar. I think it’s something lawyers say, knowing the details of what is considered a fair trial. Perhaps he should have said the defendant has a right to fair trial, not a perfect trial.
Mt husband worked for a temp agency for a few months when he got back from Iraq. One of his jobs was being assigned to a mock jury to test the waters for a civil case. What had happened was that a plaintiff had a pretty much open-and-shut case for negligence against the city, and would have gotten a pretty big settlement, but the lawyer she hired well in advance of the filing deadline (like, a year before it) managed to miss the deadline, and assured her that getting a waiver was SOP, it was no big deal, etc. But then, didn’t get the waiver, and that was the end of the case. So the plaintiff turned around and sued the first lawyer for incompetence, or malpractice, or whatever you sue lawyers for in a case like this. The mock jury found for the plaintiff. I don’t know how the real case turned out. I hope that at the very least, she got back anything she’d paid to the first lawyer.
If you think about it, if all trials were perfect, there would be no need for an appeals process. The appeals process is to assure fairness, not perfection. Every time a lawyer makes an objection, particularly one that is sustained, something was imperfect," but fairness was maintained as best as possible by the judge either sustaining the objection or not, and occasionally even having something stricken from the record, and instructing the jury not to consider what they had just heard. Yes, you can’t unring a bell, but people can follow a judge’s instructions. I’ve been on a jury, and everyone was a good person taking the job very seriously.
Trials are wrought by humans, and we can and often do, do good, but we suck at “perfect.”
BTW: The video wouldn’t play for me, but I found an article about the comment and read it, so I may not have as visceral a reaction as other people.
What’s the point? They caught the guy with the gun still smoking. They have a confession. They found bombs in his apartment. Witnesses described him. They have him planning the attack and writing in a journal.
Just what kind of evidence would the defense have to present to get a not guilty verdict out of this?
I can think of things, but they are pretty fringe. They find on x-rays the circuitry and wiring for a remote brain implant, developed in secret, to allow another person to remotely control his body. Alien beings sign an affidavit and are willing to testify in open court that they used mind control technology. A security camera shows a team of armed men in Jesse Holmes look-alike masks right outside the movie theatre, and Jessie being unloaded, while drugged, from a van and the smoking gun placed in his hands…
Secret audio and video recordings show that all of the detectives who investigated the case coordinating the planting of all of the evidence.
The judge has been pretty candid in the few hearings I’ve watched. Keeps prodding the lawyers and the case forward. I guess thats his style.
This was the most impatience that I’ve seen him display so far. Gotta be a tough job working in his court.
If the prosecutor makes a mistake and calls the defendant “the murderer,” and the judge rebukes him for it, that’s one thing. If the prosecutor does this over and over, all through the trial, and the judge lets him get away with it…that’s another!
The whole “objection” deal is based on the realization that mistakes will get made.
My first reaction is that what he’s saying is actually The Law. What I mean by that, is that if you were to look through thousands of appellate decisions, made after criminal trials, you would never find one overturned because it (the trial) wasn’t “perfect”. In order to overturn the verdict (meaning the giving the defendant a chance at a new trial) you would need to convince the appellate court that (among other things): that the error actually affected the verdict (it wasn’t “harmless error”), that the error was “preserved” (that the defense attorney made the right objections at the right time, and obtained and adverse ruling from the judge) and (if you’re complaining about ineffective assistance of counsel): that the error can’t somehow be attributed to the trial strategy of the lawyer (maybe she failed to object to certain evidence because it was part of her trial strategy), and that the error was really, really bad. For example, in the “sleeping lawyer” case (a death penalty case where the defense attorney slept through parts of the trial) the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (the criminal version of the Supreme Court of Texas) ruled against the defendant, because they said the verdict probably would have been the same, even if he’d been awake.
Having said all that, usually judges are usually more circumspect, especially if there’s cameras around. They’re not as candid as this judge was.
tldr: Criminal cases don’t get overturned because they weren’t “perfect”. They get overturned only if something really egregious happened. And sometimes not even then.
I don’t see what the confusion is. The state only has to present evidence which shows the accused is guilty beyond “reasonable” doubt. A “perfect” trial would put the burden of proof at “There’s no possible way the accused didn’t commit this act.”
Just media BS - there’s nothing wrong with saying you don’t get a “perfect” trial. No one is guaranteed a perfect trial. He later said he was going to be “unreasonable” - which I think he was saying as a way to get the attorneys in line with his thinking.
Generally judges will usually go along if both sides agree, but judges have the right to decide things that are in accordance with local rules and such regarding timelines. Of course local rules won’t override statute or constitutional law.
In especially high profile cases - it’s not uncommon for both sides to try and do everything possible to get everything in they can. They want more time. Obviously they don’t have to depose witnesses sequentially - they are stalling for more time.
Plenty of times judges won’t let in extra witnesses if they basically are redundant and stuff like that.
There’s all kind of stuff that judges have discretion over.