What is the name of your state?Washington
If in the trial of a suspected Meth Lab a judge grants a motion of the defense to restrict court testimony and questioning to refer to it as what it actually is, a Suspected Meth Lab, what about the judge's comments herself? In our trial, midway through the prosecution's witnesses, as we were about to recess for the day, our judge who had granted this motion, told the witness on the stand to gather up the samples from the meth lab and place them back in the envelope they came out of. This caused every juror to stop and focus their attention on the judge, who obviosly didnt realize what she had said. When the witness handed the evidense back to the prosecutor, the judge the asked for the jury pass some charts of "How to Make Methamphetamine" to the end of each row so her assistant could pick them up. She then excused the jurors at which point my lawyer immediatly moved for a mistrial. She denied, explaining that she had merely made a mistake and had actually been referring to the Meth Lab charts and that she was confident the jurors understood what she was saying but, she had been looking directly at the samples in addition to pointing at them. She said if defense council wished she could clarify on Monday, since this took place onThursday and courts are reserved for other matters here on Friday. A couple other topics , not pertaining to this one and she declared recess until Monday. However before leaving the room she pointed out that over the course of three days such things could "fade" from the jurors minds and that her pointing it out might do nothing more than raise some flags. Innocent until proven guilty (B.S.), means a suspected meth lab is just that until proven otherwise, right or wrong? If a judge refers to the evidece as having came from a Meth Lab then where did the evidence come from? Does anyone agree that this was a serious mistake that could definetly affect the outcome of our case? Don't ten years of a life, and there are two of us, deserve more than clarification? They deserve accuracy, which is what most people expect from a professional and it is what we the people deserve! Any suggestions on what to do would be appreciated, our jury is mid-way through their second day of deliberations, is that good or bad?
If in the trial of a suspected Meth Lab a judge grants a motion of the defense to restrict court testimony and questioning to refer to it as what it actually is, a Suspected Meth Lab, what about the judge's comments herself? In our trial, midway through the prosecution's witnesses, as we were about to recess for the day, our judge who had granted this motion, told the witness on the stand to gather up the samples from the meth lab and place them back in the envelope they came out of. This caused every juror to stop and focus their attention on the judge, who obviosly didnt realize what she had said. When the witness handed the evidense back to the prosecutor, the judge the asked for the jury pass some charts of "How to Make Methamphetamine" to the end of each row so her assistant could pick them up. She then excused the jurors at which point my lawyer immediatly moved for a mistrial. She denied, explaining that she had merely made a mistake and had actually been referring to the Meth Lab charts and that she was confident the jurors understood what she was saying but, she had been looking directly at the samples in addition to pointing at them. She said if defense council wished she could clarify on Monday, since this took place onThursday and courts are reserved for other matters here on Friday. A couple other topics , not pertaining to this one and she declared recess until Monday. However before leaving the room she pointed out that over the course of three days such things could "fade" from the jurors minds and that her pointing it out might do nothing more than raise some flags. Innocent until proven guilty (B.S.), means a suspected meth lab is just that until proven otherwise, right or wrong? If a judge refers to the evidece as having came from a Meth Lab then where did the evidence come from? Does anyone agree that this was a serious mistake that could definetly affect the outcome of our case? Don't ten years of a life, and there are two of us, deserve more than clarification? They deserve accuracy, which is what most people expect from a professional and it is what we the people deserve! Any suggestions on what to do would be appreciated, our jury is mid-way through their second day of deliberations, is that good or bad?