To All....Yesterday, I (Charlie Chan) joined Jaykajones (Sherlock) and Ghors (Dr. Watson) on yet another visit to the
Federal Clerk's office in Dallas to go thru files from the Harris
and IDCC cases with Ericy to see if there were any new gems to be found under rocks yet to be turned over. A lot of my time was devoted to reading the transcript of the Pre-Trial Hearing
of the Harris v. Ericy case to try and learn a little more about how Judge Lynn might set the trial rules for the IDCC case. I
found the following to be intersting and hope you can get a better insight into how Judge Lynn might handle the IDCC case.
1) Length of Trial...she allowed each side 35 hours to present their cases (total of 70 hours). She also allowed each side
30 minutes each to conduct their voir dire (completed
questionnaires on each prospective juror having already been
furnished to each side). She stated that normally a day of
testimony would run about 5 1/2 hours.
2) Jurors ... she had called a pool of 40 prospective jurors
and planned to seat 8 jurors (although she is not adverse to
a 12 panel jury). Each side could strike 4 jurors.
(a) She will consider economic issues in excusing jurors and
is sympathetic to small business owners when it's going to hurt
their income for up to 3 weeks.
3) Gum Chewing ... she will not allow gum chewing in her court room as it is disturbing to some and diverts attention from the
jurors.
4) Trial delays ...she wants to avoid unnecessary delays as she
does not want to inconvenience the jury.
5) Opening statements ...she allowed up to 1 hour for opening statements. (It was not real clear to me whether each side had
one hour or one hour was the time frame in which both sides had
to present their opening statements.)
6) Exhibits ..she does not want to send any exhibits to the jury for deliberation that have not been talked about in testimony.
(i.e., she gave an example...if she pre-admitted 300 exhibits and
only 20 get talked about in testimony, then only those 20 will be sent to the jury for deliberation...she does not want the jury paying attention to exhibits no one has talked about.)
(a) She will pre-admit exhibits not disputed. If the exhibit is pre-admitted and not used, it should be withdrawn.
7) Repetitious Testimony ...She will move the testimony of witnesses along if she feels things are getting repetitious.
She will first tell the lawyer in private, and then tell the
lawyer in the presence of the jury if it continues.
8) After the conclusion of the trial she will make herelf available to each juror that wants to talk with her. She
stated most all jurors who speak with her complain about
too much repetition in testimony.
9) Dress for witnesses ... witnesses should dress appropriately for court and the lawyer should see to this.
She does not want witnesses dressed like they "just came in from the farm".
10) Argumentative Statements .. she cautions against overdoing this. She feels that it is an argumentative statement if it's your explanation of why what was said should not be considered
persuasive to the jury.
11) Depositions ... she will give the jury a general description of depositions and how they should treat them.
12) "Shadow Jury" ... she will allow one or both sides to have a shadow jury present in the court room. A shadow jury is made
up of "folks" who would be representative of a jury, but not
the official jury, that will listen and evaluate the case to advise "their" side how the case is going through their eyes.
Harris's attorneys did not use a shadow jury; however, ERICY's
attorney (McKool) did use one comprised of 6 "jurors" and a
consultant. The judge was concerend about excess traffic in her court room and did not want this shadow jury and consultant moving around the court room like a pack as the real jury might
think something was up. Harris's lead attorney didn't object to them however he was quite clear he did not want them "stacked
up on his side of the court room as he didn't want the real jury to think they were associated with Harris...nor did he want any of them to be even close to him and wanted them to keep their distance from the Harris people, Harris attorneys and the real jurors. Judge Lynn instructed McKool that the shadow jury should
be dispersed through the court room and should stay away from
both sides of the case and the jury and should not fraternize with anyone in the court except their consultant.
13) NO witness will be allowed in the court room.
14) Interim Summations ... Judge Lynn felt it was helpful to the
jurors to have the lawyers use this, and it appears that the Harris attorney made good use of this. She said this would count against the time limits, she did not require the use of it, and stated that she did not want so many that it became disruptive.
She will not let this be used in the middle of testimony from a
witness or during cross-examination, but it can be used before or after a witness(es). She will allow one side to do an interim
summation during the other side's case.
From my reading, I felt that the above would give you an idea of the type of court she runs and some of her rules. She sounds like a fair and reasonable judge who has feelings for the
parties and especially the jurors.
I am now going back to reading my tea leaves to see what lies ahead for IDCC and it's share price for next week. On behalf of the "Dallas 3", it's been our priviledge to give you this up-date.
Charlie Chan
