Lawyers fight tooth and nail over whether a particular statement is admissible hearsay – is it an assertion; if so, is it offered for its truth; and if both conditions are met, is there a hearsay exception that permits it to be heard or seen. And then they stop. But as a recent Pennsylvania Superior
Rarely is a cross-examination limited to an attack on credibility – there are often multiple goals which may include eliciting positive/supportive facts and ultimately telling or reinforcing the ‘story’ the witness’ examiner is presenting. The recognition of multiple goals of cross-examination is nothing new. Despite early emphasis on cross-examination as being needed to expose “mendacity,”
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
The below advice was developed for a lecture to Temple trial team members as work to ‘up our game’ in various aspects of courtroom advocacy. The advice, with minimal modification, is also useful for practicing attorneys. Why concentrate on the opening statement? It is where we are judged first, and our performance shapes how
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
Given that the Rules of Evidence were developed without regard to, or prior to the development of, principles of cognitive science, one might expect courts to use scientific research to mediate those rules and, especially, to inform the exercise of discretion. But as two divergent lines of cases show, although each involves how a visual
It is beyond question that we inhabit a nation where, to some, a trusted voice is more valued than hard data and science. Why? Are some people hard wired (or might we say “politically wired”) to view scientific evidence either as credible or untrustworthy? And if the answer is “yes,” what does that imply for
Tremendous time and effort are spent on word choice – drafting the perfect motion in limine, opening statement, and/or closing argument. However, it may be that the more time spent on how the ideas are delivered will enhance persuasion more than the words used. This is brought home in a new research paper, How The
I [Grant] discovered recently that Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the hilarious movie about two con-men competing to swindle a rich heiress, was released on December 14th, 31 years ago. You may recall the premise of the movie: A dashing and debonair swindler, played by Michael Caine, gets into a winner-takes-all swindling battle for an heiress’s money
In honor of national Adopt-A-Dog and Adopt-a-Shelter-Dog month, we will look at an interesting study on drug-dog evidence and mock-juror decision making, examining whether jurors would credit the alert of a drug-sniffing dog as a *sufficient condition* for guilt in a trafficking case. The researchers in this study tested how much credit mock jurors would