Negligence lawyers have long reaped great benefits by introducing “day-in-the-life” videos that arouse jurors’ sympathy for injury victims. Now prosecutors are learning how to get enormous mileage from “victim TV” as well. Fair play? Should defense lawyers be allowed to introduce counter-videos of how horrible prison is and what it does to clients sent there? (Ann Althouse, Nov. 30).
More: Commenters say “for running a stop sign” much under-describes the crime at issue in the case.
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Subject matter of this post aside, the title is grossly misleading, even if the ambiguity is removed. (I know, it’s a third-party feed). Perhaps the video helped put the defendent away because he operated a vehicle in such a way that now someone is dead. Maybe the title should read, “The video that…for pressing the accelerator.”
Additional comments from Althouse’s site – apparently not only did he kill someone by running the stop sign – he was running the stop sign in an attempt to evade police and avoid getting a 4th DUI. I have to say I’m a little disgusted at Althouse for how misleading her post is.
Mr. Frank, does that mean that if you found yourself as a defendant in a case involving a traffic fatality you wouldn’t think a similar video aimed at you wasn’t just a tad over-the-top? Given the circumstances you’ve described why would it be necessary to show the video to a jury at all? The prosecution was afraid the facts alone wouldn’t have justified the result without it? If so, then it tacitly admits the prejudicial nature of the video and a willingness to go that far to win.
Particular circumstances aside, Althouse raises an interesting — and troubling — issue.
I believe the problem many of us have with the article is the slant that his crime was running a stop sign, rather than having 3 DUIs and still driving drunk and trying to evade the police and in the process killing someone. Personally I would be fine with limiting the victim impact videos to no longer than the criminal sympathy testimony.
I just don’t like it when a law professor, CNN, Fox, Drudge, etc…puts a completely B.S. spin on the headline. If a defendant was sent to prison for twenty two years for running a stop sign, whether or not a crafty video influenced it, we stop calling our courts “courts” and start calling them “star chambers.”