The Sunday Miami Herald had a page-one story on the Scott Rothstein criminal enterprise. While most of the scandalous events have been publicized by now, one quote caught my attention....
Category: Criminal Defense
Cross-examining the Cooperating Witness (Part 1)
As some of you know, I like to have concrete examples to use in illustrating and discussing the arts of trial advocacy. I don’t think anyone can learn them from...
Conrad Murray: The Sentencing (Part 2)
It is hard to sit back and watch fumbling lawyers allow an injustice to occur. I felt sick listening to the judge’s rant at the sentencing hearing. Not that I...
Conrad Murray: The Sentencing
The hearing started with the attorneys making their pitches for the sentence. Both were fairly understated. Not much advocacy. They were almost quiet. The prosecution made much of the documentary...
Conrad Murray: The 100 Million Dollar Man
It is reported that the prosecutors are asking for a four-year sentence, the maximum for involuntary manslaughter in California. In addition to the prison term, the prosecutors wrote, Murray should...
Dr. Phil’s Autopsy
I recently wrote a piece on the Rebecca Zahau case for the Huffington Post. You can find it here. It was a follow-up to an another article I wrote for...
Conrad Murray: Final Argument (Part 4)
The last phase of the final arguments I am interested in is the prosecution rebuttal. Many prosecutors don’t specifically prepare for the rebuttal and lose one of their greatest advantages....
Conrad Murray: Final Argument (Part 2)
The children. Prosecutor David Walgren employed a clever method of humanizing Michael Jackson by describing the pain of his death through the eyes of his children. I was surprised to...
Conrad Murray: The Final Arguments (Part 1)
There is a lot of material to go through so I am breaking it up into the parts I think important. I am starting right at the beginning with Walgren’s...
Conrad Murray: The Character Defense
Thackeray captures the thought far better than me, but the sentiment is the same; the reason I started blogging was to re-examine the basic principles of trial work to see...