JUDGE’S EXPECTATIONS FOR TRIAL ADVOCACY

Superior Court Judge Timothy Bradshaw’s Web Site

Before going to trial, a trial lawyer wants to get to know what the judge likes and dislikes. This can be a challenge because procedures and customs vary from courthouse to courthouse and courtroom to courtroom in the same courthouse. Judge Timothy Bradshaw, of King County Superior Court, informs trial lawyers of what he expects from them before they enter his courtroom by posting his expectations on his Web site.




Judge Bradshaw Presides

Judge Bradshaw’s lists of Procedures cover things such as:

· Interaction with the lower bench;
· When to have witnesses available and what to tell them, such as to inform them of the court’s rulings on motions in limine, and
· Handling exhibits, such as not showing or asking a witness to show anything to the jury unless it has been admitted.

Regarding Jury Selection, Judge Bradshaw not only provides a list of the general questions that will be asked but also the precise procedures that he will use during voir dire.

Judge Bradshaw has counsel submit on a chart, provided on the Web site, whom the parties intend to call as Witnesses along with anticipated length of their testimony on direct, cross, redirect and so on.

Among the other matters covered on his Web site are these:

· Jury instructions – What the parties are expected to submit in terms of proposed instructions;
· Exhibits – Two sets are to be submitted (a judge’s working copy in addition to the one used in trial along with an exhibits list for which a template is provided;
· Depositions – They remain with counsel until filed and the process after they have been filed, and
· Technology – What is available and what counsel needs to do to get access to it and use it in trial.

Judge Bradshaw’s compendium of requirements serves both as an aid for practice in his court and also as a nice set of guidelines for practicing lawyers on how to conduct business with and in a court.

PRETRIAL AND TRIAL ADVOCACY WEB SITE

Visit www.aspenadvocacybooks.com for Valuable Resources

Pretrial Advocacy and Trial Advocacy is a Website that gives valuable resources to trial advocates, law professors, and law students.

For PRETRIAL ADVOCACY the Web site provides the following useful material:

Justice Paul Anderson’s article: “Fielding Difficult Questions from the Bench;”
Sample Complaints;
Sample Answers;
Sample Motions – Motion to Compel and Motion for Summary Judgment;
Sample Declaration;
Sample Interrogatories;
Sample Requests for Production;
Sample Requests for Admissions;
Links to worthwhile Web sites including trial visuals; tour of a courthouse, and trial advocacy blogs and websites;
Research Web sites, such as Rules of Professional Responsibilities, E-discovery, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and much more;
Case management and preparation Web sites, and Web sites for locating people, conducting background investigations and public sleuthing, and
Descriptions of the book Pretrial Advocacy: Planning, Analysis and Strategy, 2nd Edition; as well as accompanying movies on a DVD (how to take and use a deposition at trial, guided crime scene tour and visuals) and CDs.

As was discussed in a prior blog the site also offers the following TRIAL ADVOCACY resources:

Trial transcripts including personal injury and the Sonics’ trial;
Juror questionnaire;
Sample trial motion;
Preview of the Freck Point Trial demonstration movie, and
Descriptions of Trial Advocacy: Planning, Analysis & Strategy, 2nd Edition and Trial Advocacy: Assignments & Case Files as well as the accompanying trial demonstration movie - Freck Point Trial on DVDs and CDs

LAST SUMMER READING FOR TRIAL LAWYERS – IN THE INTEREST OF JUSTICE BY JOEL J. SEIDEMANN

Great Opening Statements and Closing Arguments

This last recommended summer read – In the Interest of Justice – Great Opening and Closing Arguments of the Last 100 Years, HarperCollins Publishers, 2004 – is a gift to trial lawyers. The gift to trial lawyers is given by author Joel J. Seidemann, who is a Manhattan Assistant District Attorney and currently prosecuting the Astor case in Manhattan. After reading his book, I contacted him to thank him for the gift, and he e-mailed back that the openings and closings had to meet two requirements to be included in his book: “excellent advocacy in high profile cases.”

The included transcripts excerpts of advocacy meet Mr. Sideman’s two prerequisites. The selected cases are very high profile, including, among others, the trials of: O. J. Simpson; Marv Albert; Sean Puff Daddy Combs; Adolf Eichmann; Martha Stewart; John Scopes; Amadou Diallo; Timothy McVeigh. Advocacy in these cases also satisfies the excellence test, with the advocates demonstrating how to effectively use these devices: storytelling; analogies; phrasing; humor; pathos; logic; themes and so much more.

Beyond satisfying these two requirements, Mr. Seidemann arranged the material in ways that are both entertaining and educational. For example, he juxtaposed Daniel Petrocelli’s opening statement for the plaintiff in the O. J. Simpson civil trial against Johnnie Cochran’s closing in the criminal case showing how two fine trial advocates can work the same case. Further, Mr. Seidemann provides well-written introductory overviews setting the stages for the transcripts of the openings and closings as well as thoughtful postscripts describing case outcomes and providing thoughtful commentary on the cases and trial work by the lawyers.

This book is a wonderful resource for trial lawyers, professors looking for illustrations of superb openings and closing and law students who are taking trial advocacy classes. If you know a deserving person with an interest in trial advocacy, In the Interest of Justice is the perfect gift.

TRIAL ADVOCACY WEB SITE

A Web Site Chock-Full with Valuable Resources

Pretrial Advocacy and Trial Advocacy is a Website designed to offer valuable resources for trial advocates, law professors, and law students learning about trial advocacy.





This Advocacy Web site contains:

Trial transcripts including personal injury and the Sonics’ trial;
Juror questionnaire;
Sample trial motion;
Preview of the Freck Point Trial demonstration movie;
Links to worthwhile Web sites including trial visuals, tour of a courthouse; trial advocacy blogs and websites;
Research Web sites, such as Rules of Professional Responsibilities, E-discovery, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and much more;
Case management and preparation Web sites, and Web sites for locating people, conducting background investigations and public sleuthing, and
Descriptions of books Pretrial Advocacy: Planning, Analysis and Strategy, 2nd Edition; Trial Advocacy: Planning, Analysis & Strategy, 2nd Edition and Trial Advocacy: Assignments & Case Files as well as accompanying movies on DVDs and CDs.

MORE SUMMER READING – CONVICTIONS BY JOHN KROGER

Trial Lawyer Skyrocket

Like a good courtroom adventure book with a fascinating protagonist trial lawyer? Then you’ll probably like Convictions, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NY (2008), which just came out in paperback.

As a career prosecutor (27 years in the King County Prosecutor’s Office in Seattle) I appreciate a good war story about trial work, and Kroger tells terrific tales about his trial experiences when he served as an Assistant United States Attorney. As a rookie with no trial experience, he was assigned to a high profile case. Success in that case led to a succession of major trials. He prosecutes mafia murderers, major drug dealers and was picked to do part of the Enron case, even after he resigned.

Reflecting on what he accomplished, the truly astonishing fact is that Kroger’s tenure as an AUSA lasted merely from 1997 through 2003. The book ends with him working as a Professor at Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon and pondering whether to run to become the Attorney General for Oregon. Of course he won and you can visit his AG website. Let’s hope he keeps writing.

CREATIVE LEGAL OPINIONS

The Camel Cigarette Ad Case

Creative writing is a confection – a treat to read and a treat to experience. Two judges got creative in their opinions in the Camel cartoon case. In 1998, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company entered into a multi-billion dollar settlement with several states and as part of the settlement agreed not to use characters like its icon Joe Camel in its advertizing campaigns. When Rolling Stone ran the ad pictured here, Washington state’s Attorney General sued seeking sanctions and to stop the ad campaign.

At the trial court level, King County Superior Court Judge Bill Downing displayed his renowned creative writing skills and crafted a delectable comparison when he rejected the state’s arguments. He wrote in his opinion that the ad was:

“. . . (a) thought-provoking metaphor regarding the growth and nurturance of artistic creativity. . . They are as different from the sunglass-wearing, saxophone-playing, comically hip Joe Camel as [surrealist painter] Renee Magritte is from Walt Disney."

In overturning the trial court’s ruling on in mid-July, Appellate Court Judge and former King County Judge and colleague of Judge Downing also resorted to literary flourishes in her opinion which describes the same ad this way:

"Under a blue sky in a pastoral Eden, roosters hitch rides on floating tractors, speakers grow out of the ground and radios fly. This is in a world where the natural laws do not obtain, where cancer and serious health problems can cease to exist. . . . For a product known to cause both, such a world is a potent sales device."

Legal opinions don’t have to be dry as Stephen Colbert’s wit or as dust or as the desert or as a bone . . .

SUMMER READING – PRETRIAL AND TRIAL IN ITALY

The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi

Between 1968 and 1985 in the province of Florence, Italy, a serial killer, dubbed the Monster of Florence murdered eight couples and as part of the signature slayings removed female victims’ organs.

Italian journalist Mario Spezi and American crime novelist Douglas Preston, who moved to Italy in 2000, tell the story of the Monster of Florence’s investigations and prosecutions that flow from the murders. That a single weapon, a Baretta .22, ties the cases together is in and of itself intriguing under the circumstances, which won’t be gone into because that would reveal too much.

Equally fascinating are the author’s accounts of the workings of the Italian justice system that leads to even one of the authors getting charged with a crime. The authors at one point comment on the Italian system as follows:

"During that time I (Preston) began to understand my own obsession with the Monster case. In twenty years of writing thrillers involving murder and violence, I had tried and largely failed to understand evil at its core. The Monster of Florence attracted me because it was a road into the wilderness. The case was the purest distillation of evil I had ever encountered, on many levels. It was, first of all, the evil of the depraved killings of a highly disturbed human being. But the case was about other kinds of evil as well. Some of the top investigators, prosecutors, and judges in the case, charged with the sacred responsibility of finding the truth, appeared to be more interested in using the case to leverage their power to greater personal glory. . ." Amanda Knox & Raffaele Sollecito

The case has a Seattle connection because the prosecutor of Amanda Knox, a Seattleite who is also an alum of the University of Washington, was also a prosecutor in the Monster of Florence case. Amanda Knox has been on trial because the prosecutors claim that she and her ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito killed Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy. Prosecutors accuse Knox of murdering during a sex game that went wrong. Currently the trial is in recess and the verdict is expected next year.

The Monster of Florence reads like a fast paced novel and gives insight into the justice or, more appropriately described - injustice system in Italy.