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Examples Of Trial Advocacy

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Reforms of Trial Advocacy
Advocacy is one of the most ancient profession. To put broadly, Advocacy is the art of persuading others to one’s own point of view. The general level of competence of attorneys and more particularly their competence in specific aspects of the practice of law have been frequent and recurrent concerns. Indeed, as Judge Kaufman has pointed out, "insofar as bad lawyering is the product of bad character, or laziness, or apathy, there is little that can be done by way of education."
The most recent upsurge of concern was brought to wide public attention by Chief Justice Warren Burger in his Sonnett lecture at Fordham Law School in 1973, in which he singled out the problem of inadequate trial advocacy as the area needing …show more content…

In its brief yet thorough style it covers the entire gamut of a trial. Each topic can be read separately to meet the particular demands of the moment. Examples enable the reader actually to use the material in court. Most of us enter court for the first time hoping only not to become a spectacle. With books like Trial Advocacy at hand we may even leave the courtroom with a victory. In 11 concise chapters, it discusses such frequent problems as examination of experts, introduction of various forms of evidence and ways of structuring arguments to a lay jury. Examples are used to demonstrate proper techniques. Because effective trial performance cannot be mastered solely through study, this volume should accompany practical …show more content…

Specific course requirements might remedy some of the deficiencies of incompetent advocates such as inadequate knowledge or understanding of rules of evidence and/or procedure, but would not affect the deficiency of lack of preparation for trial. Trial advocacy courses would have a remedial effect on lack of preparation only to the extent that unpreparedness for trial is a result of not knowing how to prepare adequately. An empirical analysis of the Indiana rule concluded that the course requirements were not effective for promoting or ensuring competence, at least not in terms of bar examination results. Declining pass rates on the Indiana bar examination had led to the adoption of the rule. This is not to say that trial advocacy courses are not valuable but that their capacity to remedy this major deficiency of incompetent advocates is

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1235 Words | 5 Pages

In a retributive justice system, the state is tasked with bringing Blanco-Garcia to justice. The state will accuse Blanco-Garcia of murdering Vanessa Pham and hold an adversarial trial to determine whether he is guilty of the crime or not. An appointed defense attorney (DA) will represent Blanco-Garcia at trial. Due process demands that the defendant is afforded legal representation to argue matters of law on his behalf as well as to protect the defendant’s other due process rights. Likewise, the state will also be represented by a legal agent, the commonwealth attorney (CA).

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819 Words | 4 Pages

The written story of how Clarence Earl Gideon, a poor Florida man, went from a convicted criminal to ultimately redefining legal history is astounding. The Supreme Court commonly dismisses more cases than it accepts and the fact that a handwritten petition from a prison inmate was accepted shows that even the seemingly most insignificant person can make a difference in our society. The book’s literature is highly legalistic but constantly provides a detailed account of how the judicial system is constructed. Coming from a regular college student standpoint with no previous formal law education, this makes the underlying concept easier to grasp. The story’s setting during the time of the Gideon case, showed how the legal system was constructed towards the growing concept of a defendant’s rights.

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710 Words | 3 Pages

Alex Frost Values: Law & Society 9/23/2014 The Hollow Hope Introduction and Chapter 1 Gerald Rosenberg begins his book by posing the questions he will attempt to answer for the reader throughout the rest of the text: Under what conditions do courts produce political and social change? And how effective have the courts been in producing social change under such past decisions as Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education? He then works to define some of the principles and view points 'currently' held about the US Supreme court system.

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852 Words | 4 Pages

On the 14th of October 2011, Mr Rayney had submitted an application for a trial which only involved a judge without a jury present. This was due Mr. Rayney assuming that a strong bias had been manifested pre-trial as a result of the subjective publicity revolving around the death of his wife, Corryn(The Conversation, 2012). Therefore, the jury and any member of the public would already have preconceived views in favour of Mr Rayney being guilty of murdering his wife. The trial was successful for Mr Rayney where he was acquitted of murdering his wife. Similarly, this issue is somewhat common as it had also occurred in the case Evans v The State of Western Australia [2011] WASCA 182, in which both appellants had made appeals after being convicted for murder.

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352 Words | 2 Pages

- PRO: Those in favor of abolishing peremptory challenges argue that this current process is lengthy, costly, and ineffective. The author supports this stance with high-profile case trials of previous times. In a case such as the OJ Simpson’s trial, the author reveals that there were 300 citizens selected to be potential jurors and only a few were actually chosen. Additionally, prosecutors and defense attorneys took three months to eliminate candidates and did so with the aid of jury consultants. Consequently, peremptory challenges are believed to slow down court proceedings and making it more costly for the time that is said to be wasted.

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1415 Words | 6 Pages

David Feige’s Indefensible: One Lawyer’s Journey nto the Inferno of American Justice invites people from all walks of life to a second hand experience of the criminal justice system hard at work. What is most interesting about Feige’s work is its distinct presentation of the life of a public defender in the South Bronx. Instead of simply detailing out his experiences as a public defender, Feige takes it a step further and includes the experiences of his clients. Without the personal relationships that he carefully constructs with each of his defendants, Feige would not be able to argue that the criminal justice system is flimsy at best, decisions always riding on either the judge’s personal attitudes or the clients propensity towards plea bargaining.

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307 Words | 2 Pages

(Stevenson, 2015, pg.140) Because of this the courts come under pressure to take the prosecution’s side because

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613 Words | 3 Pages

Australian courts have ruled that a trial will rarely be fair for an accused without adequate legal representation and due to this give parties to gather and present evidence and make the decision of having legal representation. Although legal representation is an option, in most cases it costs a significant amount of money and many people cannot afford such large costs. Since the adversary system is flexible and allows for parties to have control, alternatives are taken into consideration of these issues. This is shown in the case R v Gittany 2014 as Simon Gittany granted a judge-alone trial in order to save money on legal representation. By choosing this option of a judge alone trail he the case became case two weeks shorter, saving time.

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1254 Words | 6 Pages

1.0 Introduction Section 80 guarantees the right to trial by jury. The Queensland Jury Act 1995 provides the current legislation which decrees that all trials on indictment must be by jury. In the ninety years since this legislation was passed, an increase of trial complexity has occurred, leaving many jurors with the inability to comprehend the information and evidence procured in a trial. This proceeds to make lay juries ineffective and unreliable. To remedy the situation, specialised juries should be introduced to minimize the amount of incorrect verdicts, misunderstandings in court, jury misconduct, and avoidance of jury duty.

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773 Words | 4 Pages

Lawyers also decide what is relevant in court, rather than letting parties decide what they believe to be relevant. Because of this, victims lose participation in their own case. Christie also discusses the types of segmentation and their effects on modern law. I agree with Christie’s views of modern law in regards to reduced participation of parties, the presence of too many specialists, and his view on segmentation. I agree with

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504 Words | 3 Pages

The U.S. legal system has numerous pros and cons discovered throughout history and the ambiguous system is a glorious quality. The American public has the right to decided whether the legal system’s benefits outweigh the

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437 Words | 2 Pages

In the trial, the court looks at the differences between the defendant’s competency to stand trial and the mental state of the defendant at the time of the crime. The competency of a defendant to stand trial looks at if the defendant “knows the court’s proceedings and if they know what they are

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571 Words | 3 Pages

This remarkable courthouse only hosted approximately seven trials in its first year and since then has dropped even lower (Dzur, 2013). The early 20th century was the last time a jury was considered the normal process for dealing with criminal cases, and now the plea deal is king (Dzur, 2013). Simple fact is, today juries hear only a very few cases across the nation (Dzur, 2013). High-ranking members working in the justice system fear that the competence of a jury today is declining with the scientific evidence that is now available (Dzur, 2013). The statistics seem to support this fear.

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974 Words | 4 Pages

Juries are an intrinsic part of Queensland’s legal system as they protect and reinforce society’s views most importantly presumption of innocence. The fairly recent Criminal Code and Another Act Amendment Act 2008 has seen the introduction of judge only trials which has, although complicating the system, considerably improved the right of the accused to a fair trial. Although, as quoted by Justice Dean, juries were “administered in criminal cases as a protection against the tyranny of arbitrary punishment...” this amendment was implemented to protect the accused’s right to presumption of innocence without eroding their constitutional right to a jury which it has successfully achieved.

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1472 Words | 6 Pages

In this paragraph, the advantages and disadvantages of trial by jury will be discussed. The main advantages are that juries introduce community values into the legal process and can influence the system (Joyce, 2013); they can achieve a sense of equity and fairness without enforcing unjust laws; in addition, juries are independent and neutral (Davies, 2015). Moreover, they guarantee participation from the public in a democratic institution (Hostettler, 2004), and represent the population thanks to the randomness with which jurors are decided (Davies, 2015). On the other hand, the most important disadvantages are that jurors have no prior contact with the courts, no training (Hostettler, 2004) and therefore they lack knowledge of law, courtroom proceedings (Joyce, 2013), and lack of ability to understand the legal directions (Thomas, 2010). Moreover, they must face evidence which is highly technical (Hostettler, 2004).

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