Saturday, January 14, 2006

Jury Trial, continued.



A couple of posts down I mentioned I was having my first jury trial on January 17th. As it turns out, it's not going to happen. Witness unavailability is the official reason. However, this does have a silver lining to it. Last summer in my previous internship I was supposed to have a DUI jury trial, but it ended up going to someone else at the last minute. I've always regretted not being able to do that trail.

Because the one scheduled for Tuesday has to be continued, I'm now on deck with a trial on Wednesday, and sure enough, it's a DUI refusal. It's a much more difficult case to win than the one I was originally scheduled to do, but I'm up for the challenge. I'm in this internship to learn, and I'd rather lose a tough case than win an extremely easy one.

I've been told by several attorneys that do DUI cases that cases where the defendant refuses to take the breath test are very difficult to win at jury trial, unless there is something strong showing that the defendant was not safe to drive the vehicle. I'll give it a shot, and we'll see how it works out.

I think I'm prepared for the attorney. I get along really well with her, and I don't think she'll pull any dirty tricks. I should be ready for her after yesterday. An attorney was ripping me in court about how I didn't know what I was talking about, I'm an intern that needs to figure out how things are done, etc. As it turns out, I was right, the judge agreed, and it worked out just fine.

Anyway, wish me luck.

1 comment:

TheMemoWriter said...

Good luck my friend. I absolutely love that picture.