Crime Film
Documentaries
| fall | 2018|
James R. Elkins
"Murder on a Sunday Morning"
(2001)
[1 hr. 51 min.]
[film by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade]
"This documentary won a 2001 Academy Award for its compelling
account of a reopened murder case that involved a potentially incorrect
suspect and shocking tales of police corruption. Brenton Butler, a
15-year-old African-American accused of murdering a woman in Florida,
was condemned by everyone involved with the case. But Butler's lawyer
eventually reopened the investigation and found some crucial evidence
to support his client's innocence." ~ Netflix
 Wikipedia
Rotten
Tomatoes
Academy
Award
Summary
Legal Issues: (1) Reliability of Eyewitness Testimony; (2) Coerced
and False Confessions; (3) Racial Factor in Eyewitness Identification
Trial Strategies and Issues: (1) Faulty Police Investigations;
(2) Police Who Lie
The Lawyers: (1) Savvy Defense Lawyers; (2) Trial
Preparation; (3) Cross-Examination to Establish the Truth, or Cast a
Doubt on the Witness's Testimony
 Update
on the Individuals Charged with the Crime, the Civil Law Suit, and Reforms
Implemented: Wikipedia
Defendant's
Book: Brenton L. Butler, They Said It Was Murder (Jacksonville,
Florida: Vanquish Publ., 2004)
Reviews & Commentary: Academy
Award [11:10 mins. video] 
Review:
San Francisco Chronicle
Film
Review, Apercu
Murder
on a Sunday Morning: Brenton Butler Case
injusticebusters.org
Eyewitness Identification/Victim Eyewitness Testimony
Web
Resources and Videos
[collected by James R. Elkins for Advanced Criminal
Law: Convicting the Innocent]
Eyewitness
Misidentification
[Innocence Project] [7:42 mins.] [video of Jennifer
Thompson]
Coerced & False Confessions
Web
Resources and Videos
[collected by James R. Elkins for Advanced Criminal
Law: Convicting the Innocent]
Cross-Examination
We might begin with "Exposing the Hidden Truth--Cross-Examination,"in
Gerry Spence's book, Win Your Case 168-222 (New York: St. Martin's
Press, 2005). Win Your Case is commonly used in trial advocacy
courses, and for good reason. Spence notes that, "Only the deluded
or naïve believe that somehow the taking of an oath prevents witnesses,
even honest witnesses, from lying where they must."
[187] He goes
on to observe that, "Every witness is sworn to tell the
whole truth and nothing but the truth. But few do. If they did there
would be no cause for cross-examination." [192]
Spence explains his approach to cross-examination this way:
Basic cross-examination is nothing more than a true-or-false test
administered to the witness, in the course of which our story, as
it concerns that witness, is told, question by question, to the witness.
It makes little difference whether the witness answers yes or no.
Question by question, our story is being told. It's for the jury to
determine whether the witness is telling the truth when he denies
the statements contained in our questions. If we took each statement
out of our cross-examination and joined them, we would have presented
our story for that witness. [170]
Spence's fundamental premise is that cross-examination is a continuation
of his efforts to tell the client's story:
"Cross-examination
is simply storytelling in yet another form. Cross-examination
is the method by which we tell our story to the jury though the adverse
witness and, in the process, test the validity of the witness's story
against our own."[169]
"When the
lawyer gets up to cross-examine he should have a significant story
in mind that he wants to tell with this witness."
[218]
"[B]efore
we begin the cross-examination, we must have in mind the story we
wish to tell through this witness. We have prepared the story for
each witness and we'll not muddle around asking a bunch of meaningless
questions in order to hear our own melodious voices, nor will we repeat
the questions we heard on direct examination, except where it is necessary
as foundation for a well-prepared cross. And, at last, we ask ourselves,
do we want to cross-examine this witness at all?" [218-219]
Links
to Web Resources & Videos on Cross Examination
[collected by James R. Elkins for an "Art of Advocacy"
course]
Contact Professor Elkins
|
