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7 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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6. [OPENING LINES]:
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Okay. The Girardi v. Fence-Mart case is going to trial soon.
We need to keep the truck driver's felony conviction for distributing child pornography out of the case. Paul, I asked you to find out how we can do that. |
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7. (Paul) Motion in limine.
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On what basis?
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8. (Paul) Section 352. Child porn is highly prejudicial and the conviction is 10 years old. Pornography also doesn't relate to honesty, so the relevance is questionable. I would argue that the probative value is substantially outweighed by the prejudicial effect. The court should exercise its discretion and exclude it.
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What if the court disagrees? Then what?
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9. I'm glad you asked. We could agree to admit the fact of a felony conviction 10 years ago, but exclude the fact that it involved child pornography.
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Okay. That actually seems very reasonable--maybe TOO REASONABLE.
If we give the Court the compromise optoin right away, that's probably what we will be stuck with. Maybe we should wait to get a read on the Court. Maybe the Court will exclude it entirely if we don't offer the compromise up front, and then hopefully we can offer the compromise if that doesn't work. What else can we do? |
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91. (Paul) There is a Ca Supreme Court criminal case, People v. Woodard from 1979. It suggests that all felony convictions must be related to honesty in order to use them to attack credibility.
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Is it applicable to civil cases?
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92. (Paul) Well, actually it was overruled by ballot measure but only with respect to criminal cases. Technically, I think we can still make the argument in civil cases, but it is not a strong one. This case has always had dubious relevance for civil cases. Robbins v. Wong, a court of appeal case from 1994, says it is not direct precedent in civil cases. Perhaps we can raise the argument just to bolster the section 352 argument.
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What else?
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93. (Paul) We can try to get the driver a pardon or a certificate of rehabilitation...
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That seems unlikely. But go ahead and look into it. Maybe it can be done quickly.
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