Trial Procedure Quotes

I got the chance to argue my first case in Supreme Court, a criminal case arising in Alabama that involved the right of a defendant to counsel at a critical stage in a capital case before a trial.

No papist may serve on any jury in the trial of any suit between a protestant and a papist, and any challenge to such a juror being papist shall be allowed.

WHEREAS in all other Things, we require the said General Assembly, as also the said Council of State, to imitate and follow the Policy of the Form of Government, Laws, Customs, and Manner of Trial, and other Administration of Justice, used in the Realm of England, as near as may be, even as ourselves, by his Majesty's Letters Patent, are required.

The average juror is not Mr. Spock. If he were, then a trial-court judge's job would be much easier. He could instruct the jury in broad strokes - instructing only as to the bare elements of the crime, perhaps - and be confident that the jury would deduce all of the finer-grained implications that must logically follow.

No one can just file a charge and go directly to a jury trial. That just cannot happen.

The grand jury's job is not to weigh the evidence from both sides; it is only to decide whether there is enough evidence on one side to bring a person to trial.

The judge decided in this case that both the state and the defense would have the opportunity to respond to certain kinds of press. This is one such instance.

If I were able to do something unilaterally, I would probably institute a new federal rule that said all cases worth less than $500,000 would be tried without any discovery.

Prisoners at the bar, have you anything to say in your defence?