UODATE The calumnious attacks on the Blog and us on the FACDL listserv continue unabated. Will no one stand up for us? We have not for years posted emails from the listserv unless, like yesterday, the writer gives us permission. We will not take these untrue assaults on our character and integrity quietly much longer.
UPDATE- 3:46 PM We are live tweeting the Mars landing of Perseverance. @Justicebuilding. Stop trashing each other on the Listserv and watch the landing and follow our tweets.
UPDATE: If you are a member of the FACDL, and have a few minutes and need a laugh, read your emails about our last post. They are too funny- except for the baseless attacks on us and El Capitan. That is the point they have stepped over the line. Those attacks should stop lest we seek legal counsel. You know who you are. Kindly act accordingly.
The CJ of the Florida Supreme Court issued an administrative order and then a memorandum on how judges should institute remote jury trials. We suggest skipping the 27 page order and reading the 2 page memo. The variant has thrown the judiciary a curve ball. In December and January we all had visions of being inoculated in February and picking juries in March. We are close, but we are not there yet. Most Americans may not be jabbed with a vaccine until August and that is a bridge too far.
So we give credit to CJ Canady for adapting to the shifting landscape. And, surprisingly, we support the move.
Now before you get on your soap box and start pontificating about the small micro-gestures you expertly pick up on in trial which allows to you pick the best jurors and break the unbreakable witness with a withering cross all fueled by that slight tick you picked up on, let us say ...balderdash! You didn't win that case you're always bragging about because the eyewitness blinked at the right moment. And more importantly, a good trial lawyer adapts. Good trial lawyers try cases under all sorts of difficult situations. They go to foreign jurisdictions where cross examination is conducted while seated. Or where they are not permitted to move from behind a podium. Or- like most of the country and all of federal court- where depositions are not allowed. And yet, they prevail. Like the US Marines, they Improvise, Adapt and Overcome.
Both sides have the same limitations in remote jury trials. When a judge hands you a lemon, make lemonade. What you may lose from not being in the same room with jurors and witnesses, you may gain in other ways. It is up to you as a good lawyer to find those ways to make the disadvantages into advantages. Appellate oral arguments are conducted viz zoom, and things are different. There are less questions. Panels let lawyers talk longer before interrupting. Good appellate lawyers are still winning cases. They find a way.
Change is the price of survival. The world has changed. Courts have changed. The Law has changed. And now the way we try cases has changed. Deal with it. Go to trial and get those not guilty verdicts that are just waiting there for you to take off the table and hang on your wall.
Improvise.
Adapt.
Overcome.
Win.
2021-02-17 Memo Re Requirements for Remote Criminal Jury Trials by HR on Scribd
AOSC20 23 Amendment 9 by HR on Scribd