Week 5: More Court Observations
Dain Y -
Hello everyone! Thank you for visiting my blog!
I will begin by speaking about the trial I observed last week in which I got to fully view both the defense’s witness direct and cross examination. Once again, though I cannot disclose specific details of the case, I would like to share a bit of what I learned.
Firstly, I got to understand that real life trials are a lot different than what you see on TV shows, haha. For instance, in TV shows, sometimes characters that play attorney’s may suddenly present a surprising piece of evidence that it seems the other side did not expect. However, opposing this, in real life both attorneys will have information of all evidence as well as arguments that will be presented during trial per the initial hearing / arraignment. This is where both attorneys will present any evidence or arguments they would like to use during the trial and must get approval from the judge to do so. Therefore, everything in court is very open and transparent, so to speak, for both sides.
In terms of the examination, it was very interesting to see how structured the whole process was. While the defense attorney was conducting their direct examination, they began with questions that allowed the jury to fully understand the defense’s background. Not only did they ask specific questions about the incident that was being charged on, but even asked for as many details on the day, such as morning / evening routine, food, etc., as the defendant could procure. I later learned that this thorough guidance of how one event leads to another is to prevent an objection for “Lack of Foundation”. “Lack of Foundation” refers to evidence that, to all appearances, can be excused for irrelevance or lack of authentication.
As for upcoming days, in addition to reporting about my experiences in the office, I plan to spend some of my hours offline to read about more studies and articles related to my project’s main inquiry: how linguistic bias may affect the jury’s decision. Due to some personal circumstances, I believe it would be best for me to meet the court translator a bit later, but plan to possibly meet with a couple NAU Professors that specialize in linguistic bias, accents, or linguistics as a whole. So for upcoming days, you can expect a mix of both new information I found from my readings as well as more experiences from my internship!
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