South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog

The most important thing to remember when you are standing in front of a jury may be: to just be yourself. It is easy to try to emulate someone else who has been successful – and to be sure we are all the sum total of our experiences, which includes those from whom we have learned over the years – but if we are trying to be that other person then we are trying to be something that we are not.

It’s strange that we have to be reminded to just be ourselves. “Just be yourself” is a maxim for life in general that is unfortunately counter-intuitive for a lawyer in the courtroom. Jurors are people, like the people that we interact with every day in our lives, and when we are trying to be anything other than ourselves, they sense that we are not genuine and that we are not being real.

It may be that the most important thing in any trial is our credibility – the jury is looking for a guide through a difficult and confusing process in order to find their way to their verdict, whatever it may be. And more often than not they will side with and follow the person in the arena who they feel that they can trust, the person who they feel is telling them the truth.

We lose that trust, whether it is with jurors, with a client, or with the guy that I met on the street today, when we try to be anything other than who we are.

We finished a criminal trial in Georgetown this afternoon, and the jury found our client not guilty of kidnapping, burglary, and CDVHAN. It was a long few days of trial, and I’m glad to be able to breathe for a few days – in the morning I’m starting a three day seminar/training on SFST’s (standardized field sobriety tests).

Yesterday I stood in the parking lot at the courthouse with my client and his family stopped so he could see his children. It was a poignant moment to see my client, normally a hard, tough guy, melt as his three year old son hugged his neck and kissed him, saying “I love you daddy” over and over. And it was harder knowing that this man could be sent to prison for up to 30 years if I was unable to help the jury understand his story.

Just now, I went back and read a post from a few weeks ago on credibility - and I believe that this trial, more than any other I’ve had, was a lesson in credibility. We began the trial with allegations of misconduct on both sides – and discovered in the course of a pre-trial hearing that the allegations were not true. But this theme seemed to continue throughout the trial, as even the judge accused me of “miscontruing” the law while talking to the jury, and did so in front of the jury.

This may have been one of the most contentious trials that I’ve had, but when you believe in your case, on either side, I suppose that is going to happen and emotions will run high.

By the end of the trial, the state’s attorney had placed herself in a corner with a string of witnesses who were caught in a series of lies. She had left out any evidence that hurt her case, which forced me to put it into evidence and point out that she was keeping evidence from the jury. She did not call the police officers who were at the scene and who responded to the call, and the only conclusion that I and the jury can draw as to why is because the testimony of those officers would have hurt the state’s case.

The state’s attorney spent a great deal of time accusing me of using “smoke and mirrors,” a staple for prosecutors’ closing arguments in this circuit, even when the prosecutor appears to be using “smoke and mirrors” to try and get a conviction.

I believe at the end of the trial the jury followed the law, and understood that the state had not proven their case beyond any reasonable doubt. I hope that it also made a difference that I tried to speak the truth to the jury, to make the witnesses speak the truth, to make sure that they saw all of the evidence, and that I did not have to resort to “smoke and mirrors” to present our case.

As in life, success in trial begins with honesty and genuineness. Credibility is the most important thing – it is so difficult to achieve in a profession where we are distrusted by default, and once achieved it is so very easy to lose. Attorneys, judges, and juries may not give me credit for the hundreds of honest statements I make to them – honesty is and should be the default that is expected – but one mis-step, one mis-statement of law or fact will be remembered and will negatively color everything that comes after.

I should never mislead a judge or opposing counsel – no matter what benefit it gains in the short term for myself or my client, if any, the damage that would be done to my credibility may last the rest of my career. This is not to say that I can’t attack my opponent’s case with a passion, it is to say that the fight must be fair and if it is not a fair fight I must be on the side that is not cheating.

I can never mislead the jury – if the people sitting, listening, watching me from the jury box feel that I am being dishonest, that I am hiding something from them, or that I am trying to trick a witness or even worse, the jurors, I lose and my client who has placed their life and future in my hands loses with me.

It is not a question of being a good liar, of being a slicker salesman than my opponent – if I am not being truthful they will know. Just as, if I look them in the eyes and tell my client’s story with openness, honesty, and integrity, they will know. Every word that I send to the jurors must ring of truth and be grounded in fact.

Credibility wins and loses trials – all else being equal, the jury is going to vote with the person that they trust the most. The attorney on each side has the opportunity to be the jurors’ guide through a confusing and sometimes frightening process and if they do not trust me, they will look to the other side to guide them.