Yesterday was our Final Trial for Public Defender training, and I got a not guilty on all charges! Even though the jury was loaded with public defender staffers, not guilties are not guaranteed–several of my colleagues’ clients got convicted, at least on the trespass (in park after hours) charge.
An object lesson learned during the trial: co-defendants’ counsel repeatedly referred to the alleged three-on-one mugging as a “fight.” This made sense for the alleged stabber, who was running on self-defense, but it opened the door for the prosecutor’s closing argument ”Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a complicated case. This was not an old-fashioned dust-up, it was an old-fashioned BEAT DOWN!”
I have to give him props for the rhetoric, even though I wanted to beat him down when he said it.
The prosecutor, who is really another first-year public defender, later told us “I had no idea how to do a prosecutor’s closing. I figured it should be just like the opening, only with more yelling and embellishing.”
Yeah, that’s about it. Oh, and tell the jury to ignore the law. That was a good one too. Especially the part where the judge overruled our objection to his saying that.
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