Ok, that was a lot to fit in a subject line so let me explain.
My mother came home from jury duty today and said that everyone in the jury room was bitching about how long it took for a lawyer to make his/her point when the jury got the point an hour before the lawyer finally made it. The prosecutor apparently went on for ten minutes about the forensic pathologist’s credentials. Now it’s one thing if the defense wants to call his expertise into question, but if that isn’t the case, then why beat a dead horse and alienate the jury? It certainly doesn’t help there case from a rhetorical perspective. Is there some point to having it on the court transcript over simply bringing these points up later if they are called into question?
It seems that this kind of thing happens all the time in every aspect of the trial. I understand the need to be thorough but it would seem counterproductive to plant a seed of annoyance in the jury’s head. So what am i missing?
In My Experience (as a witness in several criminal procedings), the times I’ve experienced this, they were attempting to discern if there’s a contradiction some where and/or even better, that I’ll change my testimony in some way.
I had to answer a long list of questions once about the process of getting a urine sample. “I took a cup, label, pen, lid and a specimin bottle from the closet” “who had access to this closet?”
“names several people”, blah blah blah, “put it back in this closet”
“who had access to this closet” “names same people”. etc.
That time it finally got to an absurd degree when I’d said the cup was a white, styrofoam cup, he asked me to describe it and I replied “It was white, it was styrofoam and looked remarkably similar to the one the judge is drinking from”.
I’ve never before seen a sitting judge do a spit take.
wring, lol a spit take.
But even in the scenario you mention, the chain of custodianship of evidence is potentially in question. Though the last part about describing the cup is more what im talking about. And I do certainly get the part about looking for ANY contradicition, but the example I offer is one where the prosecutor is going on and on about the credentials of a state examiner. The more specific he gets with his own witness, the more potential for contradiction later.
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They’re paid by the hour. Ha ha!
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OK, seriously…to get a witness qualified as an expert, you have to build a foundation of the potential expert’s qualifications, even if the other side doesn’t plan to challenge. This could be accomplished by stipulation, but accepting an offer by the other side to stipulate may not be a good idea. Lawyers like to bolster the weight of an experts testimony by going on and on about their credentials. You do run the risk of boring your audience, but that also is part of the message; we could sing this guy’s praises for a long, long time. If a lawyer has a expert good enough to use as a witness the jury should hear every good thing you can say about him, in detail.
THeory two. All trial attorneys (gross oversimplification and generalization warning issued) secretly see themselves as Perry Mason.
Have had that happen a couple of times, too:
Defense AttY : Did you have any conversations w/the defendant?
me: of course I did. (suspecting which specific one he wanted to hear about).
Defense Atty: Like what?
me: We discussed her children, a photo frame once, rules, the weather, lots of different topics…
Defense atty: well, Miss… or is it Mrs.?
Me: I prefer Ms. thank you.
Defense atty: Well Miss …
:rolleyes:
Another time they asked if I’d had any discussions about drugs w/the defendant. “yes, she told me that she thought it wasn’t any of the state’s business if she wanted to do cocaine.”
Attorney “She said that?”
me “Yep, surprised me, too.”
(I ran a correction center at the time and was often called as a witness in proseuctions for escapes or probation violations via drug use etc.)
wring,
lmao, your second theory is exactly the same as my mother’s, including the specific reference to Perry Mason.
There is a strong tendency among lawyers to overdo things. There are a lot of reasons for this, some good and some bad.
First, you can joke about it, but it’s true that many lawyers are paid by the hour. Even if they aren’t intentionally “churning the file,” there is still a lack of a strong incentive to do things quickly.
Second, lawyers are afraid of screwing something up. Screw-ups happen all the time in law, and can have embarrassing consequences. It’s usually very tempting to spend a little more time on something, write a little more, revise something again, etc. Before you know it, a project is totally out of control.
Sometimes, the fear is justified. If some critical piece of evidence is omitted, it can potentially screw up a case. Usually, the fear is somewhat less justified.
Third, lawyers sometimes fall in love with their work. It’s often difficult to make choices and cut stuff out in the interests of brevity. This is not a unique problem to lawyers. Just watch Titanic some time.
Fourth, it’s hard to know in advance what will turn out to be important. So a lawyer will often have to go through a long boring exercise in hopes of finding a “nugget.”
Oops, submitted too early. Anyway, IMHO, one of the most important attributes of a great lawyer is that he or she does what needs to be done, and doesn’t do what doesn’t need to be done.
As it says in my trial practice book, sometimes the best cross-examination is “I have no questions, Your Honor.”
With regard to expert witnesses, the mere fact that the defence agrees to the witness’s expertise may not be enough, in some jurisdictions - you have to satisfy the judge that this person is in fact an expert witness. It’s the judge, after all, who decides if the rules of evidence prohibiting opinion evidence can be relaxed in view of the person’s expertise. Admissions by the defence (or by the Crown when it’s the defence qualifying a witness) are relevant to the judge’s determination, but cannot be binding on the court.
My thoughts (which are mostly in agreement with lucwarm :
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Most lawyers suffer from this disease. Some don’t realize it. Others (like me) think they do, but . . .
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You hate to leave anything out. There is no worse feeling than finding out that the jury poured you out because they failed to grasp some point that you thought was obvious.
2a. “No questions, your honor” sounds good, and sometimes is brilliant, but it can be risky and perhaps misinterpreted as either not having a rebuttal or being smug.
2b. Sometimes (not in the situation described in the OP) a little stalling is purposeful, to dissipate the force of a kick in the gut or to throw off the tempo or to stall to reach a lunch break or end-of-day recess.
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You get preoccupied with your case. You’ve worked it up for months or years. You know it inside and out. To you, it’s the most interesting thing in the world. It’s the same syndrome as boring people with photos of the family vacation. You don’t realize that the jurors couldn’t care less about the niceties.
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Bear in mind that the average Doper is significantly more sophisitcated than the average juror. Not everyone snaps to it as quickly as the average Doper might be expected to. There are plenty of people who are just impressed as hell about the same credentials that the more jaded juror finds boring.
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All that being said, I try as hard as I can to get to the point as fast as I can. And most trial lawyers should try. And most (like me) don’t do as well as we should at it.
JohnW77707, Esq.
And, BTW:
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Regarding 2b above, you never want to stall. But sometimes witnesses take longer or shorter than you expect and you’re just not prepared to go forward. Or something comes out in the testimony and you need to have a lunch break or overnight to figure out how to deal with it.
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This (second) post recapitulates the entire issue. You probably already knew what is posted as “6” above! But . . .
JohnW77707, Esq.