Practice Pointers

We are going to start a series of postings of practice pointers on different areas of trial preperation so please visit our blog regularly for these additions.

Recent Florida Supreme Court criminal law case of interest 3.5.10

A recent opinion form the Florida Supreme Court reversed a criminal conviction and death sentence. The basis for the reversal was that it was improper for a police officer to testify that his investigation in a case affirmed the findings or facts that were supplied by witnesses. This is an interesting opinion because it looked critically at the fact that an officer's testimony would likely be given added weight, especially where used to re-affirm other testimony that otherwise might be questioned. This seems to make entirely good sense as each person's testimony or findings should be judged independently so as not to spill-over on the the others. In this case, the testimony was objected to and also a curative instruction cautioning the jury was given. Even so, the court essentially said that you "can't unring the bell", once the testimony comes out.