I believe in data. I use data when teaching trial advocacy; and when there are no supporting data for a thesis (think, for example, of the claim that 80% of trials are decided at the end of the opening statements) I debunk the claim. We propagate too many myths as if they are eternal truths.
It’s finally starting to get cooler and October is upon us. I think instantly of Keats’s poem, Ode to Autumn, in which he lovingly describes how the season itself conspires with the sun to produce fruit, and imagines the season, personified, sitting patiently by a cider-press to watch “the last oozings hours by hours.” I’m
Eyewitness error, the product of inadequate perception and/or failed or altered memory, is generally the ‘stuff’ of criminal procedure courses. “The vagaries of eyewitness identification testimony” language dates back to Justice Frankfurter, and courses on wrongful conviction remind students that in the DNA exoneration cases 70% or more involved the mistaken claim of “that’s the
I’m sitting poolside at my local YMCA. My daughter has recently discovered that she’s part fish or, if you ask her, part mermaid. So, I end up poolside frequently and end up frequently watching members of my little town propel themselves past me in the lap lanes that I sit next to. It’s a good
A number of college students were tested on their ability to play miniature golf. “All were told that they would complete a brief questionnaire, perform a sports test that was based on the game of golf, and then answer questions about their performance after the test was completed.” But one extra factor was added: Half
Two weeks ago, my wife propped open the door of our (too-long-for-any-reasonable-use) screened porch. She was shuttling plants in and out every night and got tired of latching and unlatching the porch door. Well, it’s closed now—for good—because a hummingbird got into the porch. I can’t seem to forget that little bird and I thought
Advice from mock trial judges must be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. Especially from one who, after expressing surprise over a move by students to use the defendant’s deposition in the plaintiff’s case, opined that “you don’t necessarily have to meet your burden during your case.” But I was intrigued, if abashed by
I have observed a curious phenomenon among wild turkey during the spring breeding season—which is blooming now, right along with the daffodils. Male turkeys (toms) will often travel in packs and they display some pack behavior as they search for a mate. There is, in lupine terms, an “alpha” tom. If a hen is discovered,
Why don’t those darned jurors hear what I am telling them? Or, asked differently, what did that lawyer mean by giving such an incoherent opening statement – didn’t they realize that details were missing? The answer is that the opening statement may been ‘internally coherent but externally incoherent.’ And how this can occur is best
With Valentine’s Day less than a week away, I am again trying to become a better, more romantic version of myself. It is the season for it. It started me thinking about poetry and, specifically, Shakespearean sonnets and the works of Lord Byron. The most famous poems from the two authors both start with the