r/crimdef

I’m a trial lawyer, and evidence is my jam. So I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I still do not really understand the ritual of judicial notice.

I understand the doctrine. I understand the kind of thing the Court can take notice of. But every time I actually ask for it, the exchange feels like this:

Me: Your Honor, I’d ask the Court to take judicial notice of [Poor Richard’s Almanack reflecting that it was sunny in Philadelphia on July 4, 1759 / the fact that Petitioner was adjudicated guilty of fraud on April 1 in X County / the Secretary of State’s website showing Defendant was administratively dissolved in 2018].

Court: Okay.

Me: …

Court: …

Me: So, just to be clear, the Court is taking judicial notice?

Court: Sure.

Me: …

Opposing counsel: …

Court: …

And then everyone just moves on with no opportunity to respond or acknowledgment at all.

It has gotten to the point where I’ve started testing the limits. I’ll ask the Court to notice some public filing, then describe it with my own editorializing and still no one says anything.

Maybe it’s because notice is for indisputable, verifiable facts that can’t be contested so there’s no need to say anything but still it’s awkward every single time.

EDIT: I’ve made the classic lawyer mistake of making a joke near other lawyers. So yes, I appreciate that some of you are now litigating whether “sure” constitutes a sufficiently clear ruling for preservation purposes.

But, unfortunately, that was the joke. :)

This is got those who need additional details:

I am working on a felony burglary case. The victim is a well known doctor in the community. He hired a locksmith to change the locks on an outdoor shed. He wasn’t home at the time, so he gave instructions to the locksmith to leave the bill and new set of keys on his kitchen counter.

When the locksmith does this, he doesn’t stop there. He claims “curiosity got the best of him” and began rummaging through the house, eventually taking several pairs of panties of the doctor’s teenage daughters (the locksmith is in his 40s). The locksmith gives a full confession to police and the act is caught on interior home surveillance cameras.

I spoke with the doctor in my office about the incident several months ago. He was furious (rightly so) and felt like good privacy had been invaded. After going over the legal particulars of the case and some coaxing, I managed to convince the doctor that a probated plea offer would be the most likely outcome. He agreed to this, provided that some conditions were met. I communicated this offer to opposing counsel at a later pre trial conference.

The locksmith’s attorney and I had a phone conversation today about the case. She relayed what she believed to be possible flaws in the investigation and doubts that could be raised at trial. She provided a misdemeanor counter offer as a way to settle the case. I told the attorney that during my prior conversation with the doctor, he wasn’t inclined to accept an offer like that. But, I told her that I would speak with him and get his thoughts on the matter. She then informed me that she had a personal relationship with the doctor and asked me to tell him if he wanted to reach out to contact her. I told her I would let him know.

About half an hour after this conversation, I get a call from defense counsel. I let the call go to voicemail, where she tells me that she herself has called the doctor and gotten him to agree to her counter offer. She also provides a text message exchange between her and presumably the evidencing the agreement. I was not a part to this call nor did I ever give permission for this to take place.

I’m not sure how to handle the situation. I feel that an ethical line has been crossed and that at the very least a conversation with defense counsel needs to be had.

An I overreacting? If not, what’s the best way to handle this?

I work in legal aid. I've met some attorneys, one PD and another couple of legal aid eviction defense attorneys, who keep an extra blazer or two on hand for clients to borrow just in case.

I don't believe it would be against my org's ethic guidelines to lend a blazer just for a court hearing, but I was wondering if anyone else does/did this and has any insight to whether it is helpful?

I'm also just wondering logistically about having something for everyone to borrow, which could lead to transferring contagions or lice. Yikes.

How do you recover from a crappy hearing? Yesterday I had a hearing for my client and it did not go well - Court overruled my requests and literally rolled her eyes at me as I was speaking. I’m so upset. My client will be fine, just seems unfair and so unprofessional. Why do we have to respect the judges so much when they don’t show us the same courtesy? This was on a procedural issue that I felt should have been continued for a further hearing, but the Court refused. I am both frustrated professionally and feel a bruise to my ego as other colleagues were there watching. How do I get over this??

So I'm a PD in Indiana. We're going to be one of the last states to ever decriminalize or legalize marijuana.

For those of you who practice in states where it's legal, is there solid case law that eliminates the plain smell rule?

As a side note, there is legal hemp that smells identical to marijuana... to the point where dogs can't tell the difference. I would love to challenge a vehicle search on that basis, but I haven't had a client yet who was willing to be a guinea pig since the prosecutor here is pretty soft on marijuana cases.

Personally I've always thought that plain smell was crap. The odor of marijuana can linger in a vehicle eternally.

I have no idea if I’m using the right tag here, so forgive me. They’ve changed and I am somewhere between utterly bamboozled, flailingly angry, and concealing sheer terror when a rule changes without advance notice. I am sure *no one* here can relate to such sentiments.

My wife made me watch Jury Duty when it came out as a form of media based retaliation, and if you look at my prior post here, that was entirely fair of her. We are now rewatching after seeing the new season.

I clearly wasn’t paying enough attention to the voir dire episode the first time around.

There are cartoonish elements of course, but the things that are even somewhat accurate have me rolling even two days after our rewatch.

“I am famous and have too much to do and bought everyone lunch.” Nope, not a distraction. You’re in, juror number whatever.

“I’m a retired person with nothing else to do but uh… it’s just not my thing. I don’t want to do it.” Thank you for even showing up and thank you for your time, you have a lovely day. You are dismissed.

Bonus points for, “There is something inside of me that needs to come out.” By goodness am I intimately (and against my will) familiar with the things people need to “come out of them.” It’s their butt, WAY too much of the time. Is it usually a baby coming out of where it should be coming out? Yes. But too often it isn’t a baby and that’s not where it’s coming out.