Seems like this must be a very judge-dependent and judge-controlled thing? I imagine lawyers must want to try to throw in the kitchen sink and have tons and tons of witnesses going down every rabbit hole, but the judge has to say no to some things.
Do they set a time limit based on the complexity of the topic? Do they make a gut feel call about whether any particular witness actually adds new information and say “that’s enough”?
Can the judge “game” this and favor one side (intentionally or unintentionally if they don’t believe the side saying that more complexity and duration of witnesses is needed, like for example in a complicated technical case?)
I read about the judicial system being swamped, but are judges using time limits to help move things along better?
In: 2116
I’m a former criminal defense attorney that has tried complex cases that lasted over a month with jury pools in the hundreds. There’s a few things to know:
1) Jurors sit and watch all day. That’s what they do. Just sit on a chair and watch people talk for 8 hours a day. Ive seen them fall asleep, I had an old granny knit an entire sweater while paying better attention to the entire testimony than any juror I’ve ever had.
A jury finding CANNOT be overturned for ‘making the wrong decision.’ A Jury has a near absolute right to find someone guilty or not for any reason.
As a result attorneys DO NOT throw everything. You have to make a point and keep the jurors’ interest for very long periods of time. Any attorney worth their salt very carefully plans testimony to keep the jury’s interest and create drama in what is an exceptionally boring circumstance. You pick a theory and never do the spaghetti against the wall–any other facts that may affect an appellate record can be entered into the record through other hearings.
You have nearly zero right to say the jury was wrong.
2) trials are not like on TV. Most States require some, if not a lot of, disclosure. Witnesses are typically made available to interview beforehand, evidence is provided to both parties long before trial. You don’t get surprise witnesses and random stuff popping up very often. As a result any experienced attorney can pretty confidently say “I have about 30 minutes of questions to ask this witness,” opponent can confidently say “I have fifteen,” judge will say ‘make it an hour’ and you’re usually good.
There are very few possibilities for a “surprise witness.” It happens, but it makes you look really bad if you, as an attorney, don’t know you could possibly need a witness. So what you do is give the judge a list of everyone you may need, say ‘I probably won’t need this person,’ a d then go from there. You can end up in EXTREMELY deep shit if you call a witness neither judge nor opponent knows about without a very very very good reason.
3) trials are scheduled by the week. A courtroom usually handles very quick scheduling things in the mornings, and motions on a particular day. In my jurisdiction court started at 9 am everyday, Monday was scheduled for legal motions, and every judge had Tuesday to Friday from 1030am to end-of-day set for trial. If you had a one day trial the whole week was scheduled, if you had a five day trial then Tuesday through Friday one week and Tuesday through Friday the next week was scheduled for that trial. There was lots of extra time if needed.
4) those objections you see on TV (like “relevance”) are real things. Witnesses don’t get to just talk forever, opposing counsel and the Judge will shut things down if someone just starts rambling. One of my very first trials involved a witness who had maybe 5 minutes of barely relevant testimony and couldn’t for her life shut the fuck up–judge happily locked her off the roster because dealing with her was just too much to deal with for very little purpose (and keeping in mind number 1 attorneys will often just agree on a fact and have the judge state ‘this fact is not being debated’ precisely to avoid ridiculous and boring testimony).
5) the burden for a criminal trial is “Beyond a reasonable doubt”–best described as there’s no other explanation but that defendant did this. Any alternative explanation means a not guilty. That’s a very high burden. If the prosecution doesn’t have a very clear idea of what happened and when the trial doesn’t happen.
**IN SHORT** trials are like Broadway plays–sure an actor may take 10 minutes to deliver a line that should take 2 but both sides want to keep people’s attention and everybody knows what the script is going to be by that point. There are tools for keeping irrelevant information out, but both sides go in with a pretty clear idea of how the story is going to unfold and judges afford plenty of time to make that happen, while also keeping control of unnecessary information.
Latest Answers