the plaintiff is the person suing, the defendant is the party defending
criminal court is state prosecutor vs. the defendants(s)
before trial
arraignment
defendant appears in court, prosecutor’s charges are formally read & they enter a plea (guilty/not guilty/ no contest)
bail/release conditions are set here
preliminary hearing
prosecution shows there is probable cause (enough evidence) to actually proceed to a trial
discovery
both sides exchange evidence with each other outside the courtroom
jury selection process
vior dire (pronouced vwahr deer) is the proces of questioning prospective jurors for a court case
names are pulled from voter registration/DMV records
selected people get jury summons. they must appear in court. usually 50-100 people. the goal is to put these people through a selection process to end up with 12 jurors with 2-6 alternates
alternates have no ‘voting’ rights. still have to sit through the whole trial, are used when a juror is not able to be there.
there is a set of preliminary screenings to make sure peoples are residents, 18+, etc.
then there is a set of more specific questioning to determine if juror is fit for the trial. they’ll typically ask about job, family, education, whether they know any of the parties involved, and anything else that might bias them towards a certain side of the case
the process of removing jurors is quite interesting
challenge for cause— either party can ask judge to remove a juror. requesting party must provide a specific reason & judge can confirm/deny
peremptory challenge— each party gets a fixed number of jurors they can throw out for no reason
jury hearings
objections
there are many rules about what testimony and questions are valid in a courtroom. objection means someone thinks one of those rules are being being violated. if the judge sustains, the question/testimony is stopped and thrown out. judge may tell jurors to disregard the sustained objection. objections can also be overruled, which means the question/testimony is valid and can continue
what are the reasons to raise an objection
hearsay
no foundation
statement of law
leading questions
what parties can raise an objection?
prosecutor or defendant
there are multiple reasons they might want to object even if they think it’ll be overruled. for example, every overruled objection gets preserved in the record and if they appeal the case later they can argue any of those. if they don’t object in the moment, it’s much harder to argue later. also, they sometimes just object to throw off the witness’ or questioner’s train of thought. also, even if overruled, it might still imply to the jury that they disagree with the way the testimony is being given.
they use it when they want to show the witness evidence to have him testify based on it, but he has to testify from his memory, not from what you’re feeding him. so they say they’re giving the evidence to “refresh his memory” — he still has to give the testimony from his memory.
how does the court introduce/admit evidence into trial?
sharing evidence during court is kind of funny. they have a t.v. and someone just screen shares onto the t.v. with their computer and there’s always a couple seconds of delay and/or technical difficulties
started with the prosecution asking many questions to the a captain from the California state highway patrol who was on scene the day of the protest
the captain is the prosecution’s witness. so, the prosecution questions him first, then the defense gets to question him (the “cross-examination”), then the prosecution can question again to clarify anything from the defense’s questioning (this is called “on redirect” or “the redirect”)
played a long video of captain driving down south down the golden gate bridge on the left side.
how was the bridge empty? did the protestors only block one side of the bridge and they shut down the other side?
i wonder if they asked all those questions just to justify playing the recording of how backed up the bridge is to the jury
captain said his main concern was public safety, had concerns of conflict between protestors/drivers stuck on bridge
things i found surprising
previously to sitting in some cases, it never occurred to me that civil and criminal court hearings are public by design. openness helps keeps judges accountable and our legal system transparent. though, one inadvertent consequence of this is that details of your messy divorce get put on full display.
sealing is the process of filing a motion to make certain documents or in some scenarios whole court cases private. the onus is on the petitioner to convince the judge that their privacy outweighs the default presumption of openness of courts
ok technically there is two types of sealing. (1) is discretionary sealing where you ask the the judge to seal which i talked about above, and (2) there is also mandatory confidentiality where the law itself says that certain records must be kept confidential & it’s not up to the judge’s discretion to decide whether or not to seal