Brown & Little, P.L.C. » Entries tagged with "jury trial"
Less is More
The temptation is always to keep talking. Unlike many attorneys, I’m not enamored with the sound of my voice. I do care about creating a thorough record for appeal, however. I want to make sure the jury has everything I want it to have before it goes back to deliberate. Those are the interests that I have to balance against brevity’s incredible ability to emphasize a point. Saying the same thing a thousand times along with other things never ends up as effective as only saying that one thing. Sometimes, not saying anything at all is even better. It never feels like that’s the truth, but the more I do this, the more I think it is. I just had a trial where my … Read entire article »
Filed under: Trial
"Looks Like I'm Out of Judges"
I haven’t been blogging because of my schedule. Too much work, not enough time. The end is in sight though. Or rather, the end was in sight. I was supposed to start a six or seven day felony trial this morning, and my schedule looked pretty bearable after that. The case is in Maricopa County Superior Court, and it’s assigned to the master calendar. I’ve complained about RCC before. The master calendar isn’t much better. Whereas RCC seems designed to make sure most lawyers appear lost at all times prior to an indictment, the master calendar seems designed to rush every case to trial after an indictment without letting the parties see the same judge twice. I haven’t figure out why anyone would … Read entire article »
Thoughts on Work-Life Balance
I’ve mostly avoided blogging about work-life balance up to now. I usually have nothing intelligent to say on the subject, as my idea of balance generally consists of letting the pendulum swing. If it swings too far to one side, it’ll swing back to the other with a vengeance. I keep that in mind and try to avoid letting it swing too far to one side or the other, though I’ve encountered varying degrees of success in my quest to strike the perfect balance. These past few weeks haven’t been my most successful. I recently lost Dakota, my five-year-old German Shepherd, to chronic renal failure. I took her to the vet a few weeks ago because she was limping and seemed in pain. They asked … Read entire article »
Filed under: Practice in General, Solo Practice
Jury Trial Shenanigans
The US Constitution says you get an impartial jury “[i]n all criminal prosecutions.” The Arizona Constitution says you get an impartial jury “in criminal prosecutions.” A misdemeanor is a criminal prosecution, so you get a jury trial, right? If you agree, it probably means you haven’t had the good fortune of spending three years in law school. Those three years are essential if you want to learn the super-important lawyer skill of looking at something really clear and interpreting it to mean something different from what it obviously means. The most important lesson lawyers-to-be learn in law school is that constitutions, statutes, and rules don’t always mean what they say. Sometimes, they don’t even mean what they mean. Nowhere are those important law school lessons more impressively … Read entire article »
Filed under: Arizona Cases, SCOTUS Cases, US Constitution
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