Trial Advocacy in a Nutshell
Author:
Bergman, Paul B.
Edition:
6th
Copyright Date:
2017
21 chapters
have results for trial advocacy
Center Title 1 result
Chapter 2 Persuasive Legal Narratives 13 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Stories are interconnected events that typically unfold chronologically. Consider first why effective trial advocacy relies on story-telling.
- With chronology so vital to effective trial advocacy and inferencedrawing,
- Effective trial preparation typically entails creating two types of timelines. One type constitutes an overall timeline, based on the combined stories of all witnesses and including information emanating from documents and other exhibits. The second type of timeline is a chronology for each individual witness who may testify at trial.
- defense lawyer Billy Flynn’s glamorous but nervous client Roxie Hart is charged with murder. In the song “Razzle-Dazzle,” Billy seeks to re-assure Roxie that she has nothing to worry about. Billy tells her that that a trial is like a circus. Both are forms of entertainment, and he is a master showman. As Billy sings, the film visually reinforces his message as the colorful imagery of a circus alternates with the drab imagery of a trial. While
- Timelines do not necessarily dictate the organization of trial presentations.
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Outline 7 results (showing 5 best matches)
Chapter 1 An Approach to Trial Advocacy 13 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Like all enduring myths, these concerning trial lawyers contain kernels of truth. For example, storyconstruction and oral rhetorical skills are indeed important components of effective courtroom advocacy. However, much of the “art” of trial advocacy consists of techniques and strategies that you can apply as skillfully as principles of addition, subtraction and the Rule Against Perpetuities—well, of addition and subtraction anyway. Of course, you will have to infuse these strategies and techniques with your personal style, common sense and judgment in the context of specific cases. The purpose of this Nutshell is to provide you with a solid foundation for doing so and for understanding and building on these tools for persuasion as you gain experience.
- To curtail lamentable behavior such as this, numerous lawyer associations have developed civility guidelines. A leading example are the “Principles of Civility, Integrity and Professionalism” adopted by ABOTA (the American Board of Trial Advocacy, a national group of experienced trial lawyers). ABOTA’s principles are “intended to discourage conduct that demeans, hampers or obstructs our system of justice.” For example, Principle 19 states that attorneys should “never take depositions for the purpose of harassment or to burden an opponent with increased litigation expenses.”
- trial
- Of course, trial stories often include direct evidence, which proves or disproves a legal issue without the need of an inference. But disputes at trial often focus on the credibility of direct evidence, and evidence that pertains to credibility is a form of circumstantial evidence.
- Influenced by law-related films and TV shows as well as by accounts of the theatrical strategies of famous trial lawyers like Clarence Darrow and news media coverage of actual trials, you may have sought admission to law school with the idea of becoming a litigator. Perhaps the most visible and enduring symbols of the American legal system, adversarial trials (in popular culture, al
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Chapter 9 Direct Examination 14 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Trial Advocacy in a Nutshell
- Typically, the major witness preparation activity is a mock direct examination. Use the same vocabulary and manner in your office that you plan to use in the courtroom. If a witness will refer to tangible exhibits while testifying, have witnesses refer to them (or a reasonable facsimile if the actual exhibit is unavailable) during a mock direct. Both you and a witness should feel comfortable with a story, yet the testimony should not be so tightly structured that questions and answers sound scripted. As some experienced litigators put it, you want to “rehearse testimony over and over until it sounds spontaneous.” (In one trial advocacy panel discussion in which the author participated, a wellknown and quite successful litigator indicated that he usually rehearses direct examinations at least 20 times!)
- Success at trial typically depends on effective direct examinations.
- This pronouncement may seem heretical if your trial images come from movies and television. In popular culture, direct examinations tend to take a back seat to intense cross examinations that wring murder confessions out of nervous witnesses or powerful final summations that win over previously hostile judges and jurors.
- Early common law competency rules barred many potential witnesses from testifying. If a case was based on a barroom brawl, and the only potential witnesses were the interested participants, their spouses, the village idiot and an agnostic, probably nobody could testify! (Intentionally or not, competency rules may have prevented trial backlogs!)
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Title Page 1 result
Chapter 12 Closing Argument 25 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Atticus Finch’s powerful closing argument stresses equality under the law and professes his faith that juries provide justice. However, the argument was probably better calculated to have an impact on viewers watching the film during the civil rights era of the 1960’s than on the small town Southern jurors of the 1930’s. While any defense that Atticus offered may have been doomed to fail, nevertheless his rhetorical strategies offer important lessons in trial advocacy.
- In bench trials, a judge’s comments and questions often allow you to tailor arguments to the judge’s specific concerns. In jury trials, few jurisdictions allow jurors to pose questions, even in writing through the judge. Thus, you are typically left to your judgment as to which issues jurors consider most significant.
- To what extent should you modify a closing argument in bench trials? You generally need not modify arguments’ factual content. These arguments pertain to unique historical events, and a judge’s legal sophistication doesn’t necessarily imbue a judge with insights into historical interpretation. Thus, explicitness, preemption, analogies and the other techniques described above are typically as appropriate in bench as in jury trials. On the other hand, in bench trials you would not generally need to explain the meaning of procedural and substantive rules, unless you want to give an Olympicshopeful judge practice in the Gavel Throw.
- More than two millennia earlier, in a nontelevised trial in Athens, Euphiletus was tried for murdering Eratosthenes. Euphiletus’ defense was that the killing was justifiable because Eratosthenes had seduced Euphiletus’ wife. Under Greek law at the time, the penalty for murder was death. However, if after the first day of trial Euphiletus believed that he would be found guilty, he could quit the trial and choose exile. Euphiletus did not choose exile, and delivered a closing argument that was written for him by Lysias, an advocate who was a forerunner of modern lawyers.
- Thus, do not be content to “get the evidence in the record” and wait until closing argument to persuade judges and jurors of “what it all means.” Authors of mystery stories can get away with that approach, but after all they have their readers’ undivided attention. At trial, facing an adversary who typically vigorously contests your claims, you need to develop argument-centered narratives so that you can communicate arguments throughout a trial. From this perspective, look on closing argument as an opportunity to reinforce arguments that judges and jurors should already be aware of, and to make explicit the accuracy of your version of events and how that version proves your desired inferences (or prevents proof of the adversary’s desired inferences).
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Chapter 10 Cross Examination 32 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Wigmore (who of course never cross examined a witness in court in his life) wrote that cross examination was “the greatest legal engine for the discovery of truth ever invented.” And during his celebrated “Sermon on the Mount” evidence lectures, the late Professor and Judge Irving Younger threatened to haunt any trial lawyer who asked a nonleading cross examination question before trying 25 cases. Finally, trial advocacy treatises often describe the disastrous details lurking in the minds of adverse witnesses, just waiting for the wrong questions to elicit them.
- Probing for details can be especially effective when inquiries concern measurable quantities such as time and distance. People are notoriously poor judges of such matters, and often create conflicts in their testimony. For example, a witness who testifies that he had a “good view” of an event might estimate the distance as “50 yards.” Similarly, students in the author’s Trial Advocacy class have estimated the length of a 300 foot law school hallway anywhere from 75 to 450 feet!
- A typical example of this form of impeachment arises in criminal trials, when a prosecutor’s cross
- the witness will provide it. For example, during a deposition an adverse witness may have willingly given testimony that favors your case. At trial, the adversary did not elicit the information on direct examination, and you fully expect that the witness will testify at trial consistently with the deposition testimony. In such a situation, you may choose to seek the information with an open question.
- In the general culture, informal “rules” regulate such matters as dating, dressing and doubledipping chips into dips at parties. Equally embedded in trials are the
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Chapter 7 Courtroom Presentation Overview 46 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Parties whose cases are based on scientific evidence or are otherwise factually complex should opt for judge trials. Judges may be more savvy and experienced than the average juror, and more likely to take a full set of trial notes. Moreover, you can “educate” judges before trial by filing trial briefs.
- Jury trials tend to be longer than judge trials, and therefore may entail greater expenses for clients. (A jury trial is also likely to impose greater costs on your adversary, perhaps increasing your case’s settlement value.)
- Losing litigants may have to pay a “jury trial penalty.” For example, a criminal defendant who puts forward what a judge considers to be a specious defense and who puts the system to the time and expense of a jury trial may (unofficially of course) pay for the impertinence with a harsh sentence. And a losing civil litigant may be taxed higher costs because jury
- A trial notebook is a traditional organizational tool, though one that is increasingly being supplanted or
- Motions are formal requests for judicial rulings. As a litigator, you will undoubtedly devote many professional hours to motions, both seeking favorable rulings and opposing adversaries’ requests for rulings. Many motions concern disputes that arise prior to trial. In civil cases, common subjects of pretrial motions are jurisdiction and venue; discovery; and summary judgment. In criminal cases, common subjects of pre-trial motions include bail; discovery; and suppression of evidence such as contraband, confessions and pretrial identifications, on the ground that the police obtained the evidence in violation of a defendant’s constitutional or judicially-recognized rights. This section examines common trial and post-trial motions.
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Chapter 14 Satisfying Foundational Requirements for Tangible Evidence 14 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Federal Rule of Evidence 1002 sets forth a general requirement of an original (or a duplicate) when you seek to prove the contents of a “writing” such as a letter, a recording or a photograph. From a strategic standpoint, the Original Writing Rule coincides with effective advocacy. Even without the rule, lawyers generally seek to offer into evidence writings that support their legal claims.
- Finally, you may want to incorporate exhibits in trial presentations in order to satisfy jurors’ expectations. Many jurors derive their beliefs about what happens at trial from movies and television. They see movie and television lawyers offering exhibits into evidence by the carload, and may expect that you should be able to do the same if your case is meritorious.
- Until trial lawyers can convince manufacturers of objects likely to become exhibits to engrave little numbers or letters on them, the marking process will remain manual. Many judges prefer for lawyers to mark exhibits for identification when they first show exhibits to witnesses. Other judges want exhibits marked before trial, either during a pretrial conference or by the court clerk. When you mark exhibits for identification the process may go as follows:
- Judges may insist that you follow idiosyncratic foundational procedures when offering exhibits into evidence. If you are unsure of a trial judge’s preferences, check with the court clerk, bailiff or a more experienced attorney so that you are comfortable with the processes that a particular judge expects you to follow.
- for purposes of trial.
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Chapter 13 Evidence Rules and Processes 27 results (showing 5 best matches)
- FRE 408 encourages parties to attempt to resolve disputes prior to trial by excluding from evidence both offers of settlement and statements made in the course of settlement discussions relating to genuinely disputed claims. For example, a civil plaintiff cannot offer evidence that prior to trial the defendant made a “statutory offer” to pay a sum of money to the plaintiff in exchange for the plaintiff’s dropping of the case. (A “statutory offer” is a form of settlement offer that if rejected obligates the rejecting party to bear the adversary’s trial expenses and costs if the result at trial is not as least as good as the terms of the statutory offer.) Nor can a civil defendant offer evidence that a plaintiff offered to settle for less than the amount of damages the plaintiff seeks to obtain at trial.
- Trial lawyers of legend resemble great jazz musicians; both are artists who are adept at improvisation and thinking on their feet in the moment. But even the best improvisational jazz musicians maintain their artistry through proficiency with music’s basic but essential building blocks, the scales. In the same way, to be a consummate trial advocate, you want to be proficient with the basic building blocks of trials, the rules of evidence, their foundational requirements and the rituals for enforcing them.
- The availability of judicial notice reflects legislators’ and judges’ desire for trial outcomes to reflect objective reality. Why risk a trial outcome based on jurors’ belief that State Street in Chicago runs through agricultural lands farmed by nomadic tribes? In an appropriate case, if the character of State Street is relevant, better to have a Chicago trial judge take judicial notice and instruct the jurors that they are to find that State Street is a busy urban commercial district.
- or insist on a trial. Even if Driver A is found guilty of speeding as the result of going to trial, the offense is only an infraction so the judgment of guilt would not be admissible in the civil case.
- Exempted from the hearsay rule by Rule 801(d)(1) (and often called “statutory non-hearsay”) are a number of types of out-of-court statements that first came into being as hearsay exceptions. Rule 801(d)(1) applies to situations in which the declarant testifies at trial and is subject to cross-examination, and:
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Chapter 6 Alternative Dispute Resolution 13 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Arbitrations may be voluntary as well as mandatory. Voluntary arbitrations take place when parties agree to submit their disputes to arbitration rather than go to trial. Parties may voluntarily agree to arbitration either before or after formal litigation is underway. Parties may prefer arbitration to trial for a variety of reasons, such as:
- ADR processes may be more variable and informal than trials. But as the above discussion indicates, the development of argument-centered narratives is central to your role as a litigator, whether a case goes to trial or is resolved through arbitration, mediation or settlement negotiations.
- Voluntary settlements of disputes typically occur “in the shadow of the courthouse.” This means that whether a trial date is quickly approaching or the date of trial is uncertain, settlement positions generally reflect at least in part an estimate of the likely outcome of trial. As a result, your inferential, credibility and silent arguments are the principled bases that support your settlement positions. Depending on such factors as the party you represent and your confidence in the strength of your arguments, your argument goals during settlement negotiations will vary. For example, on behalf of a civil plaintiff, your goal may be to convince opposing counsel that your arguments will produce a verdict or an arbitration award in favor of your client. On the other hand, if your client is a criminal defendant, your goal may be to create sufficient uncertainty about the likelihood of a guilty verdict on a charged
- Well over 90% of civil and criminal disputes are resolved not by trials but through the means of Alternative Dispute Resolution (“ADR”). ADR methods formally consist of mediation and arbitration, but this chapter also encompasses settlement negotiations because they are a frequent non-judicial means of resolving disputes. Such is the popularity of the ADR methods that a frequent answer to the question, “What do you call a litigator or a judge with 25 years of experience?” is “A mediator.” Civil litigators especially may accumulate precious little actual jury trial experience, somewhat resembling the admirals of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas who never went to sea.
- This chapter examines the role of argument-centered narratives in the context of settlement negotiations, mediation and arbitration. Arbitrations are of course similar to trials, in that they are adversarial and your goal is to persuade a neutral decision-maker of the merits of your legal claims while undermining your adversary’s claims. By contrast the absence of a decision-maker with the power to impose an outcome of the disputants means that the tone of mediations and settlement negotiations is generally less adversarial and more cooperative compared to arbitrations. But with the ADR methods as at trial, your goal remains to achieve satisfactory outcomes for your clients. And as
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Chapter 11 Expert Witnesses 9 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Experts are increasingly ubiquitous in litigation. Studies suggest that experts appear in approximately 80% of all civil trials, with an average of four to five experts appearing per trial. Experts testify more frequently than ever before in criminal trials as well, partly due to advances in science and technology and partly because lawyers believe that they need to fulfill the expectations of jurors who often watch films and television shows glamorizing the role of forensic scientists. Read any magazine aimed at the trial bar or go to any web site devoted to expert witnesses, and you’ll find thousands of experts touting their expertise, experience, credibility and availability for hire.
- Q: And up to that point and continuing right up until this trial, has the information relating to the lens and the experimentation continued to be secret information, except as divulged at this trial?
- Though this chapter focuses on strategies for effectively eliciting expert testimony, experts typically play important roles in litigation well before cases go to trial.
- Common law rules in many jurisdictions limited experts to providing opinions based only on data that was supplied to them by attorneys during trial in the form of hypothetical questions. During an expert’s direct examination, the proponent would provide the expert with “hypothetical” information that in fact had to mirror the evidence that had been or would be offered at trial, and ask the expert to give an opinion based on the assumed accuracy of the information. This practice led to endless squabbles about the correspondence between evidence in the record and information in a hypothetical question. Federal Rule of Evidence 703 allows but does not require hypothetical questions; an expert may base an opinion on facts or data “that the expert has been made aware of or personally observed.” However, some attorneys prefer to use hypothetical questions because they can be a dandy way of recapitulating evidence for a judge or jury before closing argument.
- goad experts into taking more extreme positions inside the courtroom than they might in their offices or laboratories, and lay jurors more or less plucked off the street often have to evaluate complex, technical and conflicting information that they’ve never been exposed to previously. The role of experts in the trial process is likely to remain a subject of debate, and rules regulating the admissibility of expert testimony are likely to remain the subject of scrutiny by lawyers, academics, judges and legislators.
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Acknowledgments 2 results
- The people whose contributions are reflected throughout this book know who they are. However, apparently this was not good enough for them. Thus, I publicly acknowledge and give gratitude to my long-time and valued UCLA colleagues David Binder and Albert Moore, whose ideas permeate the text. Among the many practicing litigators who have been kind enough to provide feedback and suggestions, I want to especially thank Randy Even, a longtime friend and excellent litigator. Randy proves that the values of decency, public service and private advocacy can co-exist in one person, and his wisdom and experience are particularly reflected in the chapter on ADR methods.
- Thank you also to Professor Sander Goldberg of the UCLA Department of Classics for background information on the trial of Euphilitis. And I am grateful to UCLA Professor Edward Geiselman, who testifies frequently as an expert witness in eyewitness identification and who contributed greatly to the book’s discussion of expert witnesses.
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Chapter 3 Inferential Arguments 8 results (showing 5 best matches)
- The case went to trial six different times. The first two trials resulted in hung juries, and the
- At trial, you seek to prove that Lefty defrauded Simone. The standard elements of a fraud claim include (1) making a representation; (2) falsity of the representation; (3) scienter; (4) reasonable reliance; and (5) damages. You may convert each of these abstract legal elements to factual propositions as follows:
- Consider this excerpt from the argument of insurance defense attorney Charles S. Gleed in Trial #2:
- Far from constituting “exceptions,” normative elements are pervasive. For instance, the central dispute in a breach of contract action may be whether a breach was “material.” A civil negligence trial may focus on whether the defendant acted “unreasonably.” A wrongful termination trial may center on whether an employer had “just cause for termination.” In such cases, judges and jurors not only have to decide what
- These questions will often help you to identify reasons that you can include in normative factual propositions. You’ll include the evidence that supports these propositions in argumentcentered narratives at trial.
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Opening Statements 21 results (showing 5 best matches)
- The extent to which the techniques in this chapter apply to bench trials depends in part on whether an “allpurpose judge” hears a case. A judge assigned to preside over a judge trial on the day of trial is often as factually in the dark as jurors would be, and you might present much the same opening statement to the judge that you would to jurors. Allpurpose judges generally handle cases from initial filing onward, and thus are likely to be familiar with the relevant factual issues. Allpurpose judges may even urge you and an adversary to forgo opening statements altogether. However, you should be reluctant to waive opening
- Serving a similar function in this chapter to that of opening statements in trials, this subsection provides an overview of the common elements of effective opening statements.
- The timelines and inferential and credibility arguments you prepare prior to trial (see Part 1) promote persuasive opening statements because they
- . You take cases to trial for a patently instrumental reason: you want a judge or jury to take action favorable to your clients. Thus, you also provide understanding by telling a judge or jury, with as much
- For all of their ritualistic formality, trials are simply a setting in which human communication takes place. Judges and jurors may not be your friends, but neither do they shed their personalities when they enter a courtroom. Vary your tone of voice, use facial expressions that are appropriate to your words and smile when the situation calls for it. Try to eliminate or reduce “verbal tics,” such as repeatedly punctuating statements with “you know” and “uh.” Apologize sincerely for misstatements or remarks that come out wrong. Realize that you need not be perfect to succeed at trial, just be yourself.
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Chapter 4 Credibility Arguments 14 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Credibility arguments are often vital to success at trial because a major reason that cases go to trial in the first place is that the adversaries have competing versions of how disputerelated events took place. As a result, judges’ and jurors’ verdicts often grow out of their beliefs about what really happened. Judges and juries do not necessarily choose between conflicting stories. They may formulate their own accounts that match neither party’s version. Whatever story a judge or juror ultimately chooses to accept, however, the frequency with which parties offer conflicting versions of past events means that a primary trial task is to advance credibility arguments to bolster belief in the accuracy of your narratives and undermine belief in adversaries’ narratives.
- are a second important component of argumentcentered narratives. As the label suggests, the process of developing credibility arguments allows you to identify and emphasize at trial the evidence advancing the credibility of your stories and undermining the credibility of adversaries’ stories.
- set out and explained below facilitates your development of credibility arguments by identifying common factors affecting credibility. Evidence that you identify with the help of the model becomes the evidence you emphasize in argumentcentered trial narratives.
- As an officer of the court, your obligation at trial is to elicit testimony that witnesses believe accurate as of the time they testify. Thus, when helpful witnesses change their stories, elicit the truth as they believe it to be at trial along with explanations for the changes. Do not try to hide inconsistencies by advising
- case. In that case, alleged widow Sallie Hillmon sued three life insurance companies to collect the proceeds of policies on the life of her husband John, who she claimed had been accidentally shot to death. The insurance companies refused to pay, denying that the corpse was that of John Hillmon. Chapter 3 provided an example of an inferential argument from one of the closing arguments in the second of the six trials that
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Chapter 5 Silent Arguments 7 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Similarly, a prosecutor’s office relies on a silent argument when it assigns to a case a trial deputy who is of the same ethnicity or gender as a defendant. Implicit in the deputy’s presence is the silent argument, “I wouldn’t be prosecuting this case if the defendant weren’t really guilty.”
- While you may seek to offer evidence at trial that you hope will be the basis of helpful silent arguments, you also must be aware of the potential to be victimized by silent arguments. For example, depending on the locale of a trial and the “tenor of the times,” clients such as insurance companies, banks, debt collection agencies, tenants, landlords, teenagers and the like may be the targets of adverse silent arguments. Indeed, in a multiethnic, multiracial society, all people and institutions have the peace of mind of knowing that they may be victimized by stereotypes and prejudice because they belong to groups that are distrusted by members of other groups.
- You represent a lowincome tenant, and fear that the trial judge harbors a view that low income tenants are irresponsible. In response to this silent argument, your argumentcentered narrative may emphasize evidence of the tenant’s responsible behavior, such as the tenant’s repeatedly seeking out the landlord to resolve a building problem.
- The argumentcentered narratives that Chapters 3 and 4 described appeal to the rational processes of inferential reasoning. That is, when you develop stories and respond to those of your adversaries in a way that emphasizes favorable inferences and credibility factors, your arguments are explicit and consistent with evidence rules and the truthseeking function of trials.
- So long as evidence is relevant, you may proffer it at trial even if its primary value is to serve as the basis of a silent argument. For example, if you represent a plaintiff in a personal injury case growing out of an auto accident, you may elicit testimony from the plaintiff that “I was on my way to a PTA meeting when the defendant’s car ran into mine.” The plaintiff’s destination is properly part of the story, but your underlying goal may be to promote a silent argument that the plaintiff is a deserving litigant.
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- Part 2 explains and illustrates techniques for effective presentations of rhetorical narratives during each phase of trial, from opening statement to closing argument. Additional chapters in Part 2 focus on courtroom practices, expert witnesses, evidence rules, and foundations for tangible exhibits.
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Index 9 results (showing 5 best matches)
Preface 1 result
- Increasingly, disputes that might in earlier years have been decided by judges and juries inside courtrooms are resolved through Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). The most common ADR processes are Arbitration, Settlement Negotiations and Mediation. However, litigators’ rhetorical skills are as relevant to effective representation in the context of ADR as they are at trial. In Chapter 6, this new edition explains how to use rhetorical narratives effectively during arbitrations, settlement negotiations and mediations.
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- Publication Date: November 23rd, 2016
- ISBN: 9781683282211
- Subject: Trial Practice
- Series: Nutshells
- Type: Overviews
-
Description:
Trial Advocacy in a Nutshell was one of the first works to analyze and illustrate discrete courtroom skills and techniques in the context of principles of persuasion. The expanded and updated Sixth Edition incorporates a number of features that make the book more indispensable for trial lawyers than ever. Part 1 provides a concrete and detailed guide for developing “argument-centered narratives,” which are credible stories that support advocates’ desired inferences. Part 1 concludes with an important new chapter that explains the role of argument-centered narratives in the context of arbitrations, mediations and settlement negotiations. Part 2 analyzes and illustrates strategies, techniques and rules for presenting argument-centered narratives effectively during all phases of trial, from opening statement to closing argument, with a separate chapter analyzing effective examination strategies for expert witnesses.
The Sixth Edition expands the coverage of the Federal Rules of Evidence, explaining and illustrating how to lay foundations that satisfy evidentiary requirements set forth in the rules. Foundational requirements for electronic records and many other types of exhibits, including those prepared by courtroom graphics experts, also gain additional prominence in the new edition. Some of the illustrative examinations and arguments in the new edition are drawn from trials that took place in a variety of eras. For example, the chapter on closing argument compares arguments made in the murder trial of Euphiletus (Greece, circa 400 B.C.) with those made in the trial of OJ Simpson (1995). Among the other trials from which illustrations are drawn are those of the Rosenbergs (the so-called “atomic spies,” 1953), the Menendez Brothers (1991), the “Hillmon case” (1890’s), and the “Triangle Shirtwaist Fire” case (1911). The illustrations from these cases are not only interesting, but also suggestive of enduring principles of persuasion.
Another feature of the Sixth Edition are analyses of examples drawn from classic courtroom films such as Anatomy of a Murder, 12 Angry Men and My Cousin Vinny. Combined with these new and expanded features, the Sixth Edition preserves many of the features that have made the book so valuable to readers. For example, the book continues to carefully explain principles, illustrate them, and analyze the illustrations. Popular “models,” such as the Credibility Model and the Safety Model of Cross Examination, also appear in the new edition. Also carried forward is the book’s light tone which makes it not only useful but also a good read.
