Posts
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
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
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.
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...
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.
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.
Post a Comment