TRIAL PREPARATION: GO TO THE SCENE

Through trial preparation means that you must go to the scene. To understand a case requires a sense of the people and the place involved. It is critical to go to the scene at the earliest opportunity. You can’t truly understand the place unless you have been there. The scene could be an intersection in a negligence collision case, a nursing home in an elder abuse case or the bar in a case involving a shooting in a tavern on a Saturday night. Witness statements, pictures and diagrams are poor substitutes for being there. This is not a new subject here; it is worth repeating.

The case that my law students work on for both the Comprehensive Pretrial and Trial courses involves a Saturday night shooting in a bar which results in a criminal homicide prosecution and a civil tavern liability civil suit.  Full case files for these cases are located on the website that is a companion resource for Pretrial.

Because the bar is the scene of the shooting, my Seattle University law students (this fall’s class pictured above) and I, as part of the strenuous curriculum, visit the Garage Tavern where the shooting took place. I usually play the role of the lead detective and the students in the role of counsel question me about the location and the people involved. To prepare for the class the students watch a video tour of the tavern on the website which is a companion to the Pretrial Advocacy book. The students note that the differences from even what they saw in the video of the scene, including the ambient noise and the low lighting when they are there in person. Factors which would interfere with a witness’s ability to see and hear.

I stress the importance of going to the scene as soon as possible not only so that they, as counsel, will have a grasp of the location when they talk to witnesses but also because the scene may change from the night of the shooting or whatever the incident might be in their cases. How has a scene visit worked to your advantage?

We discuss the value of having someone who was involved in the incident present because they can point out where people and things were when the shooting took place. Also, we talk about having a camera to take photos of the scene before something is changed if this has not already been done.

The experience of going to the Garage Tavern will hopefully stick in the students’ minds the vital value of visiting the scene, doing it as soon as possible and how to approach the scene visit. Beyond that, it is a great opportunity to spend time getting to know your students in a non-school setting. Do you do this as part of your pretrial advocacy course?

Going to the scene is an important aspect of pretrial preparation and case development.

Comprehensive Pretrial Advocacy Class Goes to the Crime Scene - Garage Tavern

Seattle University Pretrial Advocacy Class

Spring 2015 at the Garage Tavern Crime Scene

PRETRIAL & TRIAL ADVOCACY: GET THEM OUT OF THE CLASSROOM

When teaching pretrial or trial advocacy, it is important to get the law students out of the classroom to experience the real life of a trial lawyer. For my Comprehensive Pretrial Advocacy course, the students have a minimum of three experiences outside the classroom. First, we go to the scene – the Garage tavern (the class picture taken during the recent visit) where the shooting took place, which led to both criminal murder charges and the complaint for wrongful death. We use the cases in the Pretrial Advocacy book throughout the course.

The go-to-the-scene outing focuses on two teaching points: go to the scene because it gives the trial lawyer a firmer understanding of events that gave rise to the law suit, and go to the scene as soon as possible because the scene may be altered over time.

The other two experiences get them out of the classroom and into a courtroom. The second occurs when they appear before a Superior Court Judge to argue a motion (pictured below). This experience of appearing before a real Judge has a profound impact on the students. The motion argument constitutes a good share of their grade and is the equivalent of a final examination. The effect on them is apparent in the way they carefully prepare and effectively deliver their arguments. Not only does this opportunity often result in students expressing a desire to make a career of trial work but also gives them judicial feedback on how to improve.

Third, the students are required to go to court, observe a motion or motions calendar and write a report about their experiences. The students invariably praise this courthouse visit. For instance, this semester’s reports contained these comments, among many others:

·         “All in all a valuable learning experience.”

·         “I was able to leave the courtroom that afternoon with three very important takeaways.”

·         “It was comforting to see what we will be doing in the future and know that we will be able to do it well with hard work and dedication.”

As a pretrial and trial advocacy instructor, it is gratifying to read the students’ reports of their observations and to learn how being out of the classroom and in the courtroom can be such a worthwhile learning experience for them. This semester a theme ran through several of their papers relating to preparation for arguing a motion. In near future, I’ll share those students’ observations here.

PRETRIAL AND TRIAL ON THE ROAD

This is Seattle University Law School’s Comprehensive Pretrial class learning the importance of going to the scene – the Garage Tavern where the shooting took place. For more about the case and the scene visit the case website here.


Here is my co-author Marilyn Berger and her husband Albert currently on a trip.

VISITING THE CRIME SCENE

Law Students Visit the Scene of the Shooting

For our summer Pretrial Advocacy class, we visit the scene of the shooting at the Garage Tavern. The shooting leads to both a criminal prosecution and a civil wrongful death case, which are the cases that we work with during the course.

This is a field trip designed to teach the importance of a scene visit. And, it's also an enjoyable outing with talented and fun law students.

IMPORTANCE OF THE SCENE VISIT

Garage Tavern – Scene of the Shooting

To understand a case requires a sense of the people and the place involved. It is critical to go to the scene at the earliest opportunity. You can’t truly understand the place unless you have been there. The scene could be an intersection in a negligence collision case, a nursing home in an elder abuse case or the bar in a case involving a shooting in a tavern on a Saturday night. Witness statements, pictures and diagrams are poor substitutes for being there. This is not a new subject here; it is worth repeating.

The case that my law students work on for both the Comprehensive Pretrial and Trial courses involves a Saturday night shooting in a bar which results in a criminal homicide prosecution and a civil tavern liability civil suit (full case files for these cases are contained in Pretrial Advocacy and Trial Advocacy Assignments and Case Files texts).

Because the bar is the scene of the shooting, my Seattle University law students (pictured above) and I, as part of the strenuous curriculum, visit the Garage Tavern where the shooting took place. I usually play the role of the lead detective and the students in the role of counsel question me about the location and the people involved. To prepare for the class the students watch a video tour of the tavern on a DVD that comes with their text (you can view part of the video on the website for the book and DVD here). The students note that the differences from even what they saw in the video of the scene, including the ambient noise and the low lighting when they are there in person. Factors which would interfere with a witness’s ability to see and hear.

I stress the importance of going to the scene as soon as possible not only so that they, as counsel, will have a grasp of the location when they talk to witnesses but also because the scene may change from the night of the shooting or whatever the incident might be in their cases. How has a scene visit worked to your advantage?

We discuss the value of having someone who was involved in the incident present because they can point out where people and things were when the shooting took place. Also, we talk about having a camera to take photos of the scene before something is changed if this has not already been done.

The experience of going to the Garage Tavern will hopefully stick in the students’ minds the vital value of visiting the scene, doing it as soon as possible and how to approach the scene visit. Beyond that, it is a great opportunity to spend time getting to know your students in a non-school setting. Do you do this as part of your pretrial advocacy course?

Going to the scene is an important aspect of pretrial preparation and case development. To purchase or get an examination copy of Pretrial Advocacy click here.

PRETRIAL VISIT TO THE SCENE

Really Understanding Your Case

This Tuesday evening, my Seattle University Law School Pretrial Advocacy class, Judge Dean Lum (my co-teacher) and I visited The Garage tavern in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. During the Pretrial Ad course, the law students work with cases growing out of a Saturday night shooting in The Garage tavern. The shooting led to both a criminal (murder charges) and a civil case (wrongful death).

The visit to the scene of the shooting is intended to get to know the students better in a social setting and to spice up the course with some practical, real world experience. Most of all, it is designed to drive home the point that a scene visit is a critical part of case development. No lawyer can completely understand the case without visiting the scene where the event took place. The visit gives the trial lawyer a grasp of distances, sight lines, ambient sounds, the look of objects and so on.

For the Pretrial Advocacy class, we use the Case File that comes with the Pretrial Advocacy: Planning, Analysis and Strategy book. The class assignment is to view a DVD, which comes with the Pretrial book, in which the prosecutor’s investigator leads a tour of the Garage. You can view a clip of that tour. When we meet at The Garage, the students are asked to explain what they learned by going to the scene that they could not learn by watching the video. The list includes things like learning how loud The Garage is in the evening hours when compared with the daytime tour on the video.

Three Other Teaching Points

Three other points are covered when discussing the scene visit with the students.

1. Sooner the Better - The visit should be scheduled for the earliest opportunity before any changes can be made. And, it should be at the same time of day as when the event occurred because the scene may change during the day, such being noisier and more crowded. Ideally, you would also visit the scene with a person who is familiar with what took place where and when.

2. Creating Trial Visuals - The scene is where you will get ideas for trial visuals to create. You can take photographs of the scene. You or your investigator can take photographs, measure so a to-scale diagram can be drawn, inspect the scene, make a video. All the time, you think about the witnesses who would identify and authenticate the exhibits at trial.

3. Jury Scene Visit - While you are at the scene, you will also be contemplating whether or not to ask the judge for a jury scene visit. At trial, you can request that the jury be taken to the scene. If the motion is granted, the jurors will be transported there and permitted to walk and inspect the scene. A jury visit could be helpful or harmful to the case theory. For example, where a defendant claims self-defense, asserting that he was frightened when the victim approached him in an alley, a trip to the secluded, dark alley crowded with drug addicts may give the jurors the sense of apprehension that the defendant felt as he was approached by the victim in that alley and lead to the conclusion the defendant did act in self-defense and should be found not guilty.