Courtroom Observation

My day started with going to Judge Lippitt’s courtroom. The trial had already started, the defendant’s councilor was doing his opening statement. He was in the middle of telling everyone in the courtroom that this case was about, disagreement on how much bone was removed. Further, calming that the judgment call was on the surgeon who actually saw joint and arthritis. A doctor was brought up, saying that he wanted the least invasive first for the patient, but then it got to the more invasive procedures. He believes that the other doctor, let’s call him doctor 2, made the right diagnostic. He brings up the x-ray of the patient’s foot before and after the operation. He continues saying that the original judgment call belongs to the surgeon because …show more content…
I had been wanting to observe a jury selection, I finally observed some in Judge Ewell’s courtroom. Judge and counsels are discussing to see what jurors can be excuse when I went in. The jurors came back in and took almost all the seats, the prosecutor started his questioning. There are some jurors that attempt to complicate the question. The prosecutor would sometimes ask questions to specifically one juror or to groups. They would ask questions if they had any bias like for example, with police officers. The jurors were then asked if they can put their bias aside. The prosecuting counsel would ask if anyone had any feelings about glasses hut’s and clarified they had to set them aside. The prosecutor used a rape hypothetical as follows, if there was no evidence, but the victim was credible enough would they say the defendant was guilty or would you require more witnesses. They went down the jury box trying to get a response for the hypothetical. Most, would say yes, some would give a lengthy answer. Judge Ewell stopped the hypothetical and asked the prosecutor to follow legal instructions. Then, the prosecutor gave the jury an example of direct evidence and circumstantial evidence using rain and umbrella’s. She said that both types of evidence used in the example are as good. The prosecutor asked one of the jurors about the defendant because she said she felt uncomfortable with him. Then, the Judge asked if there would be any bias because of the comfort issue. Judge Ewell went around from juror to juror asking them to state the answers to the questions on the board which are questions about them after that, she would ask them if they had any yeses to the questions and if do which were they. Some of the jurors would ask for sidebars if they wanted to answer to a question