For many trial lawyers, the great challenge is to step outside our own perspective and view the trial as a juror does. Here's a suggestion for both a starter exercise and a lifelong habit: start by taking the challenge literally. What is the jurors' view? From where they're sitting, what can they see?
In South Dakota last week, a trial lawyer asked that question, and a cartoonist was startled to see his cartoon marked as Exhibit A.
Jason Folkerts was a newspaper cartoonist, not a juror, the day he drew this cartoon about jury selection in the Daphne Wright murder trial in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. (So I guess it's not strictly juror art, but I'm going to put it in the gallery anyway, if only because it's in the record.)
It's an awful trial; Ms. Wright, who is deaf, is accused of killing another woman and dismembering her with a chainsaw, because she was jealous of the woman's friendship with Ms. Wright's own girlfriend.
Against that grim background, it must have been a welcome moment to at least some observers when the focus of the trial suddenly became Jason Folkerts's cartoon. Apparently one of the sign language interpreters had the cartoon attached to her notebook. Defense counsel, public defender Jeff Larson, saw the cartoon, and was concerned that jurors might have seen it too.
Chuck Baldwin of the Argus Leader, the local paper, is doing a wonderful job liveblogging the trial. Folkerts reprints Baldwin's telling of the story at his own blog in a post titled My Cartoon Is Exhibit A In The Daphne Wright Trial...WHAT???. The cartoon was marked as part of a mistrial motion, which was denied. (The judge said he was the same distance from the cartoon as the jurors and couldn't tell what it was.)
Thanks to Jason Folkerts for permission to reprint his cartoon. If by any chance you're counting references in this blog to Tinky Winky from the Teletubbies, this cartoon is number two; the first one is here.
