Defendant's Case

If, as ordinarily happens, the judge denies the motion for judgment of acquittal, we proceed to put on our case. If we really believe that the government has failed to prove its case, we may not put on any witnesses -- presenting witnesses is inherently unpredictable, and gives the government an opportunity to shore up its case.

When we present a witness we conduct "direct examination" of the witness -- asking non-leading questions to get the witness to tell his part of our story. (Leading questions are questions that suggest their own answer. For example, "isn't it true that . . ." is a classic beginning for a leading question.) The challenge of direct examination is to help the witness tell the story in a compelling way that the members of the jury can relate to. We work with our witnesses to put the story in everyday language (talk in the courtroom like you'd talk in your living room) and bring out the details that will make the jury connect -- the five senses, and the emotion behind the story. As you might imagine, helping witnesses tell the story in a compelling way requires us to understand the story deeply, which -- again -- requires active listening.

After our direct examination of a witness is complete, the government gets an opportunity to cross-examine him. We try to protect the witness from being pushed around too much by the prosecutor. If a witness knows what to expect from the prosecutor on cross-examination (because we have prepared him for the process before trial), and if he told the truth on direct examination, the prosecutor will not be able to do much damage to our case through him.