About Jules M Epstein (hehimhis) Pennsylvania law, as does federal, permits a person accused of a crime to ‘defend’ in part by proving their ‘good’ character, limited to the pertinent trait. If the crime is robbery or assault, the defense is that the accused is non-violent; and if the crime charged is forgery or theft, that the person is
We all know the admonition from Miranda v. Arizona – anything you say may be used against you. The question lawyers need to ponder – and adversaries need to pounce upon – is whether that same admonition applies to what lawyers say in their openings and closings, with the added concern that the warning will
We’ve heard it at lectures, and perhaps echoed the claim ourselves – the attention span of a goldfish is 9 seconds, and that of humans is less. As detailed in TIME Magazine, [r]esearchers in Canada surveyed 2,000 participants and studied the brain activity of 112 others using electroencephalograms (EEGs). Microsoft found that since the year
In one iteration of his “Ten Commandments” lecture on cross-examination, the famed advocacy teacher Irving Younger posited that ‘less is more.’ When showing a witness’ bias, you need not call them out as a liar; instead, simply argue in closing “and the witness, who testified for the defendant – it’s their mother.” According to Younger,
Criminal case investigations often start with Locard’s “exchange principle” – “It is impossible for a criminal to act, especially considering the intensity of a crime, without leaving traces of this presence.” As otherwise described, “[t]his theory states that, whenever two objects come into contact, an exchange of materials occurs between them.” Mistek et al, ,
It should come as no surprise that evidence rules and their application are often without regard to, and indeed in conflict with, scientific findings. That is a challenge every advocate faces, the law as it is versus the law as it should be. But science can be enlisted to try and change evidence or evidence-related
There was a time in this nation’s history when jurors knew the witnesses – they were neighbors or more – and had some sense of who was reliable and who was not, who was prone to lie and who could be counted on to tell the truth.[1] This was probably an imperfect tool, one subject
Bruce Springstein’s inimitable lyrics speak of someone “blinded by the light.” They came to mind, sadly, when reviewing a defense lawyer’s attempt to impeach a cooperating witness. In that case, the lawyer followed a model that is a recurring problem in trial advocacy, lawyers “blindered by the lie.” What do I mean? Decades ago I
Can trial lawyers and advocacy teachers learn from a book about false confessions, moving beyond that specific problem to more general lessons about jurors, belief systems, and persuasion? The answer, at least if one reads DUPED, is a resounding “yes.” Let me take you to that book, the scary phenomenon of false confessions as they
In 1992, Willie Veasy confessed to a murder, a confession a jury accepted despite a time card showing him to have been at work as a dishwasher 8 miles away. In 2001, Jermel Lewis signed a confession admitting to participating in Philadelphia’s worst mass killing – the seven homicides in what was known as the