At least someone’s winning.
A few weeks ago I mentioned all the trials I had coming up soon and how I expected to have little time for blogging during that period. Correction: That was six freaking freaking weeks ago! Needless to say, I’ve been busy, but not in quite the ways I thought.
The biggest thing that’s happened is that I lost my first ever jury trial. My client was charged with two counts of misdemeanor assault for a fight in her workplace where she allegedly punched two coworkers. The prosecution had a string of five eyewitnesses and an investigator who all said the same thing: My client lost her temper and basically hit two people. We had cross examination and an admittedly thin theory of self-defense.
Along the way we ended up winning a small victory by convincing the judge that she should give the self-defense jury instruction despite the fact that we had not put on any witnesses. Because self-defense is an affirmative defense, we had a burden of proving it by putting on evidence; the prosecutor argued that meant we had to at least call a witness, and prior to trial, all the experienced lawyers I talked to basically agreed with the prosecutor. Of course, we argued that we did put on evidence via our cross-examnation of the prosecution witnesses. The judge went our way and my slim hope that we might have a chance remained alive.
Of course, that tiny victory was short-lived. I knew going in that we were unlikely to win, but it was still a huge disappointment to hear that double “guilty” at the end of a 13-hour day. (The trial was only about 8 hours from voir dire to verdict, but I started the day long before the trial began.)
The good thing is that I no longer have to wonder if I can get through a trial without throwing up on my shoes. I can. And I learned an incredible amount, all of which I will have to apply in a couple of weeks when I have my first felony trial. Although only one of the four trials I was contemplating six weeks ago actually happened, I know that this one coming up is definitely going, so I’ll keep you posted.
Meanwhile, congratulations to Frolics and Detours for her big win in her first felony trial, despite having a rotten judge.
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April 11th, 2007 at 7:31 am
As disappointing as it was, at least it wasn’t the kind of trial where you went in expecting to win. Plus, you learned a lot and came away with clean shoes. What more can you ask for?
Thanks for your support :)
April 15th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Congratulations! — I can’t imagine going through all of that, even winning seemed likely. You should be pretty impressed with yourself.