Items for trial lawyers around the web recently:
1. Voir dire questions from trial lawyer bloggers. Mark Bennett at Defending People continues his recent series on voir dire this week, with a thoughtful essay on using -- and understanding the answers to -- "scaled" questions: "On a scale of one to ten, with ten being most important and one being least important, . . . " These questions can be really helpful, as parents among others know. (I'm always asking, "On a scale of one to ten, how much does it hurt?")
Meanwhile at Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer, Jamie Spencer describes a voir dire approach he uses in possession cases when the defendant was clearly near whatever she is accused of possessing -- "driving the car where the marijuana was found," "in the house where the cocaine was found" -- but claims she didn't know it was there. "What this cries out for, is a good common sense example that every venire member can understand immediately," Jamie says, and he has one. It's a respectful discussion with a juror that makes the defense point clearly.
2. New legislation in Illinois. The Illinois legislature passed a bill this week that would allow juries in wrongful death cases to award "damages for grief, sorrow, and mental suffering, to the surviving spouse and next of kin" of the person who died. Republican opponents complaint that the bill "does nothing but line the pockets of the trial lawyers," the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
3. A bravura witness performance. How often do you have a client who can testify for hours that she repeatedly "crossed the line" into inappropriate and possibly illegal conduct, and finish the day adored by the tribunal and the media? That's Monica Goodling, whose performance before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday is worth study by anyone who wants to understand the complex and powerful ways that good impressions are made.
"She probably spent hours and hours being grilled by [her lawyer John] Dowd and his associates in mock testimony," muses Above The Law, which has a very good round-up of commentary here. Slate's Dahlia Lithwick and Emily Bazelon look at the gender factor as Goodling worship goes mainstream. "Nobody seems to want to go there, so we will," they begin, contending that the Justice Department's powerful woman "turned herself back into a little girl" for her testimony, "and it's worth pointing out that the tactic worked brilliantly."
Photo by Ho John Lee at http://www.flickr.com/photos/hjl/101443399/; license details there.)
