We’ve been noodling about trial procedure over in the Oberlin College thread in GD, and I’ve got a question about US trial procedure.
One of the other posters referred to post-trial motions to the trial judge, including judgement non obstante verdict, and a motion for a new trial.
Judgment n.o.v. I sort of get, especially in relation to damages. Maybe there’s a damages cap or other limit on liability that the trial judge properly instructed on, and the jury ignored. The trial judge can fix that sort of obvious legal error by the jury, as a question of law.
But what’s a motion for a new trial? Doesn’t that amount to saying the judge screwed up? What’s the difference between that remedy from the trial court, and asking for a new trial on appeal to the Court of Appeal?
Yes, you are basically summarizing your reasons why you think the judge screwed up and giving him an opportunity to correct his errors by awarding a new trial. In most states filing such a motion is mandatory before taking an appeal. It gives the judge a final opportunity to rethink his own rulings and outline his reasons for ruling the way he did for the appellate court to review.
Usually it’s exactly that. The other area that I’ve seen it used is to argue jury misconduct or bias. I’ve heard that it can be used to try to argue that you found some new evidence that you couldn’t have found for the trial (and the value of the motion is really to get that evidence into the appellate record), but given the fact that post-trial motions are due pretty soon after the verdict, I can’t imagine that’s often successful.
In the criminal context, a motion for post-conviction bail is done the same way. That has a bit better prospect for success. I frame the argument somewhat like, “I respect the Court’s decision, however there is a fair argument for success on our side. Should the Court deny post-conviction bail, and we are successful at the appellate level, if the Defendant has to serve the year or more in prison before the appellate court rules in her favor, then any victory she wins would be Pyrrhic, and she would have already suffered punishment for a verdict that the appellate court deemed improper. Conversely, if we lose at the appellate court, the State is not harmed as she would then have to begin serving the full prison term that this Court imposed.”
In a close case, I’ve won several of those type of motions.
