norm from cheers said:
Albert Breer retweeted
WBZ Boston News @cbsboston 22m22 minutes ago
Prosecution Expected To Rest In Aaron
#HernandezTrial http://cbsloc.al/1DyFpba
So the prosecution will rest after video guy and the Medical Examiner? Are pictures of Lloyd's autopsy allowed? I imagine those pictures and his Mother and Fiancee walking out of the court room in tears would be a lingering memory for the Jury.
The pictures have to be approved by the judge. Normally they're allowed, unless there's something especially disturbing about them, or there's extraneous information on them.
I think there have been many instances of people leaving the courtroom in tears. That can get overplayed. But again, I'm kind of cynical about that. The jury "gets" that mom is grieving. They probably don't want to be constantly reminded of it when they're focusing on testimony/facts.
CheapSeats said:
I'm curious if jurors are legitimately considering the possibility that footage was doctored, or removed.
Probably not "doctored" - but perhaps there's an issue with the timestamping. However, unless there was a major discrepancy, as a juror I probably wouldn't find enough reasonable doubt to acquit. If there was an issue that showed AH coming home potentially an hour
before the murder, that would be of major significance to me as a juror.
(There's also the issue of proving a negative - just what is the defense alleging was "removed" that goes to reasonable doubt/AH's innocence.)
BroodsSexton said:
I'm nowhere near the trial lawyer you are, but there's a maxim I've heard--totally accurate from my experience--that you never try the case you prepared for. Half the fun of a trial is the end of day debriefing to survey the damage (positive and negative) and reorient the next day's preparations.
No plan ever survives an encounter with the enemy. Cliche, but true.
Personally, I think you're always best served by having the trial issues laid out in your mind like a flowchart or a decision-making tree. If you're going out on a dead end branch, you switch. If either branch works, you commit the witness to whatever path they've taken. But don't wait till the end of the day - adjust in the moment if possible.
I'm not a musician, but from what I've discussed with friends, flexibility in trial (and in questioning) is sort of like having "chops." You can use them to deal with common situations and quirks and get yourself set up for the next thing. So for example, if I have a police officer who says they're always 100% accurate and did everything correctly, I can attack that and use it. If I have a police officer who clams up or implies through their testimony they were wrong or mistake, I can exploit and develop that and use it. If I have a police officer who comes down in the middle, I can usually get them to move one way or the other.
This is a function of practice (lots), experience, feedback, and modeling on successful attorneys. I know many other defense/trial attorneys with similar or greater levels of skill - and each of us have our little specialities and tricks and flourishes. We're usually good in other contexts (depositions, hearings, etc.) as well - waffling witnesses are waffling witnesses, impeachment through omission is always impeachment through omission, a financial bias is a financial bias, etc.
That said, because I have the chops (experience), I can think "ahead" through many crosses or rehabs, or with someone balky on direct. I can ask questions in a way to link up with what I'm doing overall. When I began trying cases I was very mechanical and linear -
question A, B, C, D, etc. If question C didn't work out I'd hammer at it until I could go on to D. Now, I think in terms of
issue A, B, C, and can fire off the strings of questions to develop issue B, then A, then C, then the rest of A, if that's the way it's going to go with any given witness.
***
All this is not to say you shouldn't do the end of the day evaluation, of course. That's crucial. I think it's the mark of an excellent litigator to be able to say, mid-trial, "Based on what's happened, we're totally changing our argument/not calling witnesses/abandoning our plan for X, etc." FWIW, I usually (now) build in a piece in the voir dire and opening where I explain that some of the evidence might surprise *me* and we (the jury and I) are going to follow up those surprises and leads together. Super useful if a witness implodes on the stand or hands you a previously unknown bias or motivation. (Or if the jury is making faces at a line of questioning.)
Edit - BTW, I'm not trying to lecture or imply you don't know this - this is a sort of general springboard response for non-attorneys following the thread.