Tag Archives: Jury Trials

Should Your Eye Witness Look At The Jury On the Stand? If Not, Where?

21 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by in Trial Tips and Techniques, Witness Preparation, Witnesses

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Treat Witness Eye Contact As a Three-Way Conversation, by Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm, Persuasive Litigator™

http://www.persuasivelitigator.com/2015/09/treat-witness-eye-contact-as-a-three-way-conversation.html

Please note the additional posts at the bottom of the page on witness nonverbal communication. -CCE

The advice is as old as the art of communication: Look at the person you are talking to. And it is good advice. Eye contact makes it easier for audiences to stay engaged and more likely that speakers will focus on their targets. For a witness on the stand during trial testimony, that means ‘Look at the jury.’ But not just the jury. A witness who shuts out counsel and fixes their gaze only on the jury is likely to look a little contrived, or even creepy. So the advice is to look at the attorney when she is asking a question, and then look at the jury when delivering your answer. But that advice can create its own problem. . . .

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Listen To The Jurors.

29 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by in Criminal Law, Jury Instructions, Jury Persuasion, Jury Selection, Murder, Trial Tips and Techniques, Voir Dire

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Listen to Jurors, Especially to Juror #13 From Pamela Smart Trial. by Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm, The Persuasive Litigator

http://tinyurl.com/k9sh7pw

There is a new documentary in current rotation on HBO and it’s one that trial lawyers and other legal junkies will want to watch. Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart provides a detailed look at the 1991 trial of the New Hampshire school employee who was tried and convicted for accessory to murder in a case that later become the inspiration for the movie To Die For starring Nicole Kidman. According to prosecutors, Smart seduced one of the students and then recruited him to murder her husband. What separates Captivated from other sensationalized post-trial documentaries is that it takes a very informed and critical look at the media’s influence on trials, and also includes a very unique running commentary from one of the jurors, number 13, who provides her own reactions to the case as it unfolded: real-time comments that she spoke into her own tape recorder after every trial day. The result ends up providing a remarkable view into the continuous reactions of a sitting juror. As O.J. Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark remarked in a review in Forbes, ‘The insights provided by this articulate, intelligent juror are the most fascinating, and at the same time unsettling, part of the story.’

Fascinating, because what you’re hearing is a conscientious and thoughtful juror attempting to work through the testimony as it is presented. Unsettling, because it is clear that the media along with the force of a popular presumption of guilt also played a role in this case. Commenting on a ‘media circus’ that made her and the other jurors ‘feel like a bug in a glass jar,’ she nonetheless tries to reach a verdict free from that pressure. Whether she and the other jurors succeeded is one of the central questions posed by the documentary, and viewers are able to draw their own conclusions. As I watched it the other night, a few thoughts occurred to me that carry relevance not only for that jury trial, but for most or all jury trials.

Jury Nullification Secret Sneaking Out Of The Bag.

16 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in Jury Instructions, Jury Persuasion, Jury Selection, Litigation, Trial Tips and Techniques

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Treat Nullification as a Known Option, by Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm, Persuasive Litigator

http://perma.cc/HWG4-PKHK

Jury nullification is treated as a deep and dangerous secret. The idea that a jury can decide to follow its own moral guidance instead of following the law, is the legal doctrine that dare not speak its name, at least not anywhere near a courtroom. It’s been used as ammo in the war against the drug war, led to accusations of jury tampering, and even served as the basis for a criminal indictment of a retired professor who made it a practice to hand out pamphlets about nullification in front of courthouses. As stories like these become more well-known, the official secret of jury nullification might be turning into something more like an open secret. Based on the viral success of a recent video by CPG Grey — more than 1.5 million viewers in the first month it’s been up — the knowledge of nullification might be well on the way to becoming more common than ever. . . .

Google Mistrials – A Continuing Problem.

02 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in Internet, Juror Impeachment, Jury Instructions, Mistrials, Research, Rule 606, Trial Tips and Techniques, Verdict

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Stealing the Verdict: Eastern District of North Carolina Allows Jury Impeachment Regarding Internet Research, by Colin Miller, EvidenceProg Blog

http://tinyurl.com/mkk48a8

“Google mistrials” have been a problem for some time. Here are two examples – one in 2014 and another in 2011 — in which a juror used Internet legal research during the trial and discussed it with fellow jurors, causing a mistrial. -CCE

An emerging problem in the American justice system is jurors conducting internet research about a case, leading to the Google mistrial. And, when such research is not discovered until after trial, as in United States v. LaRoque, 2014 WL 683729 (E.D.N.C. 2012), it leads to jury impeachment.

 Mistrial by Internet A Growing Concern, By Bob Kalinowski (Staff Writer), citizensvoice.com

 http://tinyurl.com/mge3nqk

Legal experts have coined them ‘Google mistrials.’

Curious jurors seeking to conduct their own research surf the Internet about facts presented in court, bringing a halt to important court cases and tainting the outcome.

Sometimes it’s done unwittingly. Other times it’s done against a judge’s specific directions.

Jury Consultant’s Voir Dire Tips.

10 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by in Jury Instructions, Jury Persuasion, Jury Selection, Peremptory Challenges, Trial Tips and Techniques, Voir Dire

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Indirect Questions Reap Most Information in Oral Voir Dire, by Edward P. Schwartz, THE JURY BOX

http://tinyurl.com/lvbx2pz

In reviewing the traffic on my website recently, I was struck by how much more often one particular article was accessed than any other. I used to write a column on trial strategy for Lawyers USA (formerly Lawyers Weekly USA), and this particular article on voir dire strategy from 2006 seems to be very popular, even today. So, in the spirit of giving the public what it wants, here is that article in its entirety.

Moral Outrage and Jury Persuasion.

15 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Closing Argument, Jury Persuasion, Trial Tips and Techniques

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Simple Jury Persuasion: Anger + Disgust = Moral Outrage, by Douglas Keene, The Jury Room

 http://tinyurl.com/mmuh8fq

[N]ew research shines a light on why moral outrage reactions occur and (just maybe) how one might try to elicit them (if one were wanting to do that sort of thing).