Jury Speech Rules

Jury Speech Rules shows trial lawyers that persuasive jury opening statements and closing arguments require imagination, story-telling skills, and a thorough knowledge of the legal and ethical rules that govern this important part of trial. Using famous historical cases and many useful examples, the authors demonstrate when things go wrong and when they are done right. Opening statements can present the important facts to the jury from the party's perspective, making the jurors receptive to the story that counsel intends to tell through the witnesses, documents, and visuals; well-constructed and well-delivered openings, which avoid improper argument, make an interesting introduction of the parties and the attorneys. Counsel can keep the other lawyer quiet by presenting an opening that provides no opportunity for interruption with objections. Closing arguments that can present inferences, arguments, and conclusions will help the jurors understand the significance of the facts that have been proven at trial; such arguments can explain the significance of expert testimony; they can point out logical errors in the opponents' stories; and they can win the jurors' by persuading them that the more interesting story—the more natural story, the story that fits their own experiences best—is the truthful story.

The American courtroom trial is a speech situation. Everything occurs through the spoken word. The 'summation', as speech event embedded within the trial, which is the chronological and psychological culmination of it, is one of the few opportunities for the lawyer to communicate directly with jurors. But the speech genre summation involves preliminaries as well as the event itself; and it can affect the aftermath of the trial, for the decisions of the jurors may be influenced by this discourse.This ethnographic study considers the summation from three perspectives: that of the producer, from the point of view of the ethnographer who observed and analyzed sixty-six actual summations and from that of the receivers of the speech event who must act upon it. Information was obtained from post-deliberation questionnaires completed by 223 jurors, plus 35 alternate jurors.

The irreparable injury rule says that courts will not grant an equitable remedy to prevent harm if it would be adequate to let the harm happen and grant the legal remedy of money damages. After surveying more than 1400 cases, Laycock concludes that this ancient rule is dead--that it almost never affects the results of cases. When a court denies equitable relief, its real reasons are derived from the interests of defendants or the legal system, and not from the adequacy of the plaintiff's legal remedy. Laycock seeks to complete the assimilation of equity, showing that the law-equity distinction survives only as a proxy for other, more functional distinctions. Analyzing the real rules for choosing remedies in terms of these functional distinctions, he clarifies the entire law of remedies, from grand theory down to the practical details of specific cases. He shows that there is no positive law support for the most important applications of the legal-economic theory of efficient breach of contract. Included are extensive notes and a detailed table of cases arranged by jurisdiction.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.

Thirty years after it was first published, the issues raised in The Jury and the Defense of Insanity remain pertinent. Rita James Simon examines how motivated and competent juries are, how well jurors understand and follow judges' instructions, their understand-ing of expert testimony, and the extent to which their own backgrounds and experiences influence their decisions. Simon provides a rare opportunity to observe how jurors go about the process of deliberating and reaching a verdict by following them into the jury room and recording their deliberations. This pathbreaking study of jury room behavior provides compelling evidence of the effectiveness of our trial by jury system. The Jury and the Defense of Insanity was the product of an experimental study con-ducted as part of the University of Chicago Jury Project. Over 1,000 jurors were chosen to participate, not as volunteers, but as part of their regular jury duty, in two experimental trials, one on a charge of housebreaking, the other of incest. In each the insanity de-fense was raised. Court judges instructed the jurors to consider the recorded trials they were about to hear with all the care and seriousness they would give to a real criminal prosecution, and the taped recordings of their deliberations make it clear that they did just that. These recordings, along with responses to detailed questionnaires, yielded significant data, equally applicable to civil as to criminal cases. We learn their reactions to their fellow jurors; personal evaluations of the quality and effectiveness of delibera-tions; the degree to which religion, sex, social status, education, and like factors affect participation in and influence on the course of the deliberation; and the recounting of and reliance upon personal experience in seeking to reach a verdict, among other in-sights furnished by this study. This is an exact record--not a description or recollected account--of the struggle of a jury to weigh evidence and achieve a just verdict. For lawyers whose job it is to win civil and criminal cases, for behavioral scientists who study male and female reactions in their cultural environment to the circumstances that confront them, and to all who are interested in how people behave and why, in a dramatic, socially significant situation, this is a fascinating and revealing book.

Excerpt from Modern Jury Trials and Advocates: Containing Condensed Cases, With Sketches and Speeches of American Advocates; The Art of Winning Cases and Manner of Counsel Described, With Notes and Rules of Practice Yet there are single Speeches, that have changed the fate of nations, or saved a poor, quivering human being from a cruel death of horrible torture; speeches that carry with them an inspiration forever, and, like old, familiar songs, when repeated, always awaken renewed interest. Very much of an oration dies with its author and the event that called it into being. A stranger, coming in suddenly on a scene of local interest, in the midst of a stirring speech, would realize but faintly the real spirit of the occasion, and could hardly compre hend its true beauty. And no one will claim that a clear repeti tion of that matchless oration of Demosthenes, in his contest for a crown, which included those magic words, M'an is not born to his parents only, but to his country! Could be delivered by any other than the mighty genius himself, who had long been impris oued by Alexander; Who was moved by the plaudits of a mighty people, whose liberty he believed was hanging in the balance, add ing fire to his eye, power to his voice, soul to his sentences, and energy to his expression. It was the pleading and the beseeching look from the crowded Athenaeum that loosed the speaker's tongue, thrilled his nerves, lit up his features, and formed a granite foundation to his argument. Remove the surroundings, and you remove the charm of the ora tion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.