OBJECTIONS - Objections & Responses, Part I: "The Lights are On"

okay the thing I like about that is that just some people that think that I'm running some kind of cult when the litigation centers for this chanting like that it actually feeds into that notion today we're talking about objections and responses at trial so one of the things that's often disconnected in your legal studies you all take evidence and ideally you take evidence before you get into trial advocacy type of courses or skills type courses and inevitably in those trial advocacy or skills courses you're forced to use evidence object under the rules of evidence respond with evidentiary responses to objections and there's a disconnect you learned it at one point you understood the case you understood the topic but the idea of taking that understanding into the courtroom using it as it relates to when do I object using it as relates to how do i best respond and one of the things I want to talk about today keeping up that air of the lights are on while you're in the courtroom we talked about a trial a PC and hopefully by now you've heard in your sections of trial advocacy that when you are in the middle of the well of the courtroom you're in this odd environment where people from the public people from the DMV people from the BART station are watching you while you do your job they're watching you on trial and they do watch you and look what you wear see how you act and see how you interact with opposing counsel with the court reporter and with the judge certainly and they're taking notes taking mental notes of all of it and it's funny how when we talk to them in a jury address we're certainly cognizant of that that's when we put on our best self good morning ladies the jury may it please the court and we sound this way and we talk to them and if we've worked on it for a few weeks now in your witness examinations you're also cognizant today you have this audience and that they're involved in this discussion even though you're asking questions of a witness you can coach that witness to keep them give the responses to the jury and you're you're aware that they're there you're aware that they're listening sometimes as it relates to this disconnect as it relates to objections and responses and overall just the rules of evidence as they make their way into the courtroom sometimes that awareness of that the jury's watching more that they're still judging drops off sometimes we lose sight of the fact that when we object how we object our face when we're preparing to respond I know those in my class have seen this before and they've seen it not only from me demonstrating him but they've seen it from their own exercises you're asking questions you're mentally thinking what's my next question that I asked this witness well that was a pretty good answer what's my next question for this witness well that wasn't quite the answer I was looking for I have to ask a follow-up question and then out of nowhere your objection and you're thrust into an entirely different drill an entirely different exercise that you have to attach detached from the witness examination detached from the question answer and now go into this evidence drill now look back on your time in evidence what was that objection what was the question I just asked what was the rule implicated do I have response under the rules and you can see sometimes how our faces reflect that we are all of a sudden in some kind of different exercise it turns into this and it turns into what just happened and where am i and instead what we want to try to focus on today talk is actually to making an opportunity other objections seizing the opportunity of responding to objections if you are they proponent and you are the that's asking the questions so let's look through this I always talk about the rules of evidence and objections and responses in terms so these are acquirable skills oftentimes you folks talk about trial advocacy all this person's good at trial advocacy well the trial ever comes natural to them or they're a natural presenter well as it relates to the rules of evidence and how they play out in court this is required this is something you can work on you can get better at and you can exercise and practice and really get to be a trial skill there are people that are practicing than trying pieces all the time that don't have this as part of their arsenal they said I'll figure out the rule when it comes up or I'll look it up if it ever applies in a case but it can really be an acquirable trial skill that you have the other thing that's readily apparent from some of these people that are practicing that having taken this on board if they cannot fake your way around evidence oftentimes you can't fake responses you can't fake just offering up the judge something when an evidentiary objection comes up you actually have to know these rules you actually have to know the best responses and you have to keep on that appearance that you are doing your job in front of a jury when you fake it it looks bad so again this is that environment where the jurors are watching you and they're watching what you're doing and I want you to take it as an opportunity and here's what I want you to think about the opportunity the opportunity to show that you know these rules again if you're in that upper deck of a of a medical facility and you're watching some kind of procedure and you're watching some kind of surgery and you're watching the doctors work there's certain things you're going to look at you're going to key off look at how the way they communicate look at the way they actually work with the tools and replace one at a time look at the way they use the likely you're gonna pay attention to the way they operate this is one of our tools the rules of evidence are one of our tools in tribal the jury even if they don't know what hearsay is but they don't know what you meant by something lacks authentication oh they don't understand your response that an exception applies to that rule they know whether you have or not it's also an opportunity to show that you've prepared I think about these things we're going to talk about it as we talk about something called evidentiary sensors I've prepared my case I'm not nothing prepared what witnesses I'm going to call and the questions I'm going to ask those witnesses I not only prepare how I'm gonna incorporate exhibits and physical evidence throughout the trial but I prepared in a proofreading sense if I'm going to send a letter out or I've written a memo and I want to proofread I'm gonna look for typos and sentence construction if I'm going to proofread my trial preparation if I have proofread my witness examinations I should be looking for and proofreading for objections and potential objections that could come from my opponent and I should be looking at that first stage to say okay this is a possible objection here I'm clearly asking this witness for a statement and a statement that is out-of-court offered by tomahto court declare that could I have to recognize that could bring a hearsay protection so what I can do is I can show my preparation I have response for it I've made a plea foundation in the previous questions to help me out in that response and the jury can see that if I ask questions in a certain way objection hearsay your honor we've already asked questions that established an exception applies this is an excited utterance of 803 too and I offer my response that shows in a way that I prepared the objection that presents an opportunity for me to demonstrate that I'm prepared and the last one is your skill in voice as difficult it is and as traumatic as it is for US law students and for new lawyers to deal with this balls in the air I'm asking questions of a witness I'm getting different answers I'm told to listen to the witness's answer and I'm also supposed to maintain my presentation skills in front of the jury and now I have an objection for which I have to respond and it turns into a juggling act well when you handle it and you handle it with poise and you respond to an objection flecked you know the rules reflect that you have prepared a rigged objection response objection overruled and you return seamlessly to the question you were asking before you just showed the jury something you showed the jury something about your preparation but you've also showed the jury that you've anticipated this and you can handle it and if this is my courtroom and I am supposed to have command over this space I can show it I can seize on this opportunity of objections to hold off the objections with my right hand and keep up my activity of questions and answers to a witness or putting in a document with my left hand so think of it as an opportunity to go forward and remember that these days lights are you

Channel: wporterable

Views: 10,884

Rating: 4.8421054 out of 5

Keywords: evidence, objections, responses, trial

Id: oOPk-tSXLdc

Length: 8min 45sec (525 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 26 2012