Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Mini rant of the day


I find it frustrating (no, infuriating) how much time we in the appellate criminal law world spend arguing whether a fully-briefed, fully-litigated trial issue is preserved for appellate review by trial counsel saying exactly the right words at exactly the right time.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

4 comments:

MoikB said...

I read you regularly via feed and I'm a trial PD, and I can only imagine this frustration, which is why I do my damndest to make a record to help my appellate people as best I can. I also ask them for feedback on how I could preserve more fully.

S said...

Sometimes, I'm not sure there is anything trial attorneys can do. I once lost a case because the transcript went: Prosecutor offering evidence, trial judge saying it was admitted, and defense attorney saying, "Wait, judge, we object..." I lost that on the grounds that the objection came too late. So apparently it's a race and if the judge says it's admitted before you can object, the appeal is screwed. But to the public, evidence being suppressed as a remedy for a 4th Amendment violation is the tecnicality...

DBB said...

Ok, that's a load of crap - while the courts are still tilted against Defendants in Michigan as elsewhere, there's no way that would be treated as anything but preserved for appeal.

S said...

Yeah, it was total crap. Granted, that was only case and I've not seen that exact scenario happen again, but that one time, I was furious.

 
Blog Designed by : NW Designs