From public defender blogger Accident Prone:
In a few moments there came a knock and the Marshall banged the gavel while crying “All rise!” And I rose handsbehindback no handsclaspedinfront. The three judges came in, sat, and stared down at us from the height of the bench. Appellant up first - she rose and gave her argument. About halfway through I realized the court was completely harping on one specific issue. I wrote down a few responsive comments.
In 15-minutes, it was my turn. I gathered my things and I felt my cheeks grow hot. Donttalktoofastdonttalktoofastdonttalktoofast. I saw the light on the podium flip to green (15:00, 14:59…). “May it please the Court…” I began. I went through the formalities, then simply said, “I had this whole outline to share with you today, but since I see there’s one specific issue of interest here today, I shall go directly to that.” Only because my secret lover has been the facts of this case for the past 6-months was I able to completely shoot from the hip. Totally not where I thought the argument would ultimately end up. And man did they not agree with me -which felt weird coming from Respondent’s side. I just wanted to scream, “But, don’t you get it? I won at the lower court level. We never win!” But I realized I had failed to obtain the appropriate case law to back up that proposition. Damn. Before I knew it, the light went from green to yellow to red. I was done.
Read the entire post
ShareThis
