Thursday, May 12, 2005
Relevance?
Actor Macaulay Culkin, 24, calls child molestation allegations "absolutely ridiculous".
Stooping to blog about that famous basketball player (reference to an Al Gore speak)? No. It just reminded me of a couple things.
I was in court and one of the motions before mine dealt with a child molestation case. The defendant in that case wanted to bring in children who had regular close contact with him who would say, like the Home Alone boy, "Hey, he never molested me." -- That particular hard nosed judge would have none of it -- she said lack of molestation of the other kids is irrelevant to the charge of molestation of this particular kid. So would the prosecutor have been able to get in the opposite evidence, if it existed -- that he had molested other kids?
Anyway, it reminds of one case I had in front of that judge. Fortunately, we ended up with a substitute judge on the day of trial -- fortunate because at trial my client brings a notebook of sorts that I've never seen before and which belonged to the chief complaining witness in the felony case. Naturally, the prosecutor (who really seems to be a great guy and quietly pointed out a misunderstanding I had about the status of one of the jurors during peremptory challenges) explodes when I bring up the notebook which contains a particularly relevant and devastating statement of the complaining witness. Although the notebook never came into evidence, we did get to question the witness about the statement. I doubt whether that other judge would have allowed it; I doubt it very much. That prosecutor is a judge now and takes it in stride when I kid him about how glad I am that now I can deal with reasonable prosecutors.
Stooping to blog about that famous basketball player (reference to an Al Gore speak)? No. It just reminded me of a couple things.
I was in court and one of the motions before mine dealt with a child molestation case. The defendant in that case wanted to bring in children who had regular close contact with him who would say, like the Home Alone boy, "Hey, he never molested me." -- That particular hard nosed judge would have none of it -- she said lack of molestation of the other kids is irrelevant to the charge of molestation of this particular kid. So would the prosecutor have been able to get in the opposite evidence, if it existed -- that he had molested other kids?
Anyway, it reminds of one case I had in front of that judge. Fortunately, we ended up with a substitute judge on the day of trial -- fortunate because at trial my client brings a notebook of sorts that I've never seen before and which belonged to the chief complaining witness in the felony case. Naturally, the prosecutor (who really seems to be a great guy and quietly pointed out a misunderstanding I had about the status of one of the jurors during peremptory challenges) explodes when I bring up the notebook which contains a particularly relevant and devastating statement of the complaining witness. Although the notebook never came into evidence, we did get to question the witness about the statement. I doubt whether that other judge would have allowed it; I doubt it very much. That prosecutor is a judge now and takes it in stride when I kid him about how glad I am that now I can deal with reasonable prosecutors.
// posted by Zerin Hood @ 11:12 AM 
