Jury Trial Strategy – Trial Lawyer Stuff

OK, here is a description of an auto collision (funny):

We’ve all seen and heard how the insurance industry has taken over the healthcare system in America. Seems we blindly just allow this to happen. I watched Under Our Skin yesterday and it shows how this system we have accepted where insurance companies call the shots on our healthcare that is available is slowly but surely eroding our healthcare that is available, allowing less and less treatment, and going after any doctors who try to buck the system.

Under Our Skin: This is one of the most interesting films I think I’ve ever seen. It put the finger directly on what is really wrong with our system of healthcare, and who is really pulling the strings. I caught it on PBS last night. It didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know based on my practice as a trial lawyer and dealing with both the insurance industry and the medical industry. But I don’t think anything I say can make the point as clear as this movie makes it.

Where you can see Under Our Skin:
Official Website: http://www.underourskin.com/
This is a link to the TV schedule (when it is supposed to air): http://www.underourskin.com/tv
Its also on Netflix if you subscribe to that: http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Under_Our_Skin/70118373?trkid=2361637#height2656
You can rent it on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/movie?v=RlvDVTKbNMQ&feature=mv_sr
You can rent it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Under-Our-Skin/dp/B004I0H71I/ref=pd_vodsm_B004I0H71I
Here’s the trailer:

The movie shows how the insurance industry has taken over our healthcare, both on the medical side, and the legal side. Their interest is to pay as little as possible, and to pocket at much as possible. They don’t “produce” anything, their only motive is as a financial institution . . . to make money. Yet we’ve allowed this industry whose interest is to pay as little as they can to take over our medical system and make healthcare decisions for us, and our legal system in controlling who gets their licenses yanked, who can be sued, who can be criminally prosecuted.

This film puts the microscope on Lyme Disease and shows exactly how the insurance industry has taken over medicine and how doctors are allowed to treat patients, and how doctors are prosecuted (by doctors having their licenses taken, and even being sued by insurance companies). Most Doctors dare not try to go outside the “guidelines” for treating Lyme Disease that the insurance industry has put in place for fear of what can happen to them. The film shows what happens to Doctors who do try to go outside those guidelines (licenses yanked, sued, etc.).

This is a slippery slope. If the insurance industry can do this to Lyme Disease, they will try to do it to other health conditions that cost the insurance industry more than they wish to pay. They control the money doctors can make, they control the healthcare that people can get, they control the legal system remedies that are available to doctors and people who are suffering due to this system.

This film shows how the tail wags the dog in our healthcare system.

Example of jury selection in a CPS case.

This is a series (fictional), but Gerry Spence participated in this docudrama as the defense lawyer of Lee Harvey Oswald – this was made back in 1986 it looks like. There are 30 parts – the following is part 1 (the prosecutor’s opening), it is followed by part 2 (Gerry Spence’s opening), and you can follow the playlist on down to the end – as far as you want.

Prosecutor’s opening

Gerry Spence’s opening (Defense – of course)

Selected scenes from “Semantic Warrior” on Tony Serra – a legendary criminal lawyer in San Francisco area.

Tony Serra interview regarding his work – and about a 10 month jail stint he was sentenced to for tax evasion (he’s unable – or unwilling – to deal with government and insurance requirements he explains).

Tony Serra talking about his younger days in the 1960′s and his hippie days – still a hippie (unabashedly).

This is Tony Serra in 1987 giving instructions to a Mock Trial group on Closing argument for a criminal case that was used for law school students (I remember doing this case at SMU in one of my Mock Trial courses – not with Tony Serra as my teacher though). You can see Tony Serra’s passion in just describing a mock trial scenario – great lawyer and lots of passion.

This clip is Tony Serra giving a lecture on being a radical lawyer. Not for the faint of heart. This lawyer is hardcore and all in – when you think about it, if you are a lawyer this is where you need to be . . . radical in your representation of your clients.

If it wasn’t on video, you wouldn’t believe it. A prosecutor teaching other prosecutors how to pick a jury at voir dire.

He thinks that blacks and smart people are the worst kind of jurors for prosecutors. According to him, blacks give too many not guilty verdicts, and smart people over-think “beyond a reasonable doubt” and try to figure out what it actually means – if you are a prosecutor, you don’t want that – you don’t want people who actually think about what the law requires them to do.