Trial Notes From Today

• Not an actual photo, but it's close.
• The trial was a DWI case that I thought I had a huge chance of winning
• It involved a one vehicle wreck which wasn't a good start.
• The first three witnesses on the scene, who were also the first three people to testify, said the driver readily answered their questions, he didn't smell of alcohol, and they had no reason to tell the arriving trooper there was anything wrong or unusual with the driver.
• They also testified the wreck occurred on a stretch of road that just had a new layer of "large gravel" placed down upon it.
• That's a good start.
• The case got sidetracked when the trooper testified about something he shouldn't have after being instructed not to. It was really a matter of semantics, and I don't think he meant to say what he did. But we had a little chaos for a moment.
• The judge was forced to declare a mistrial and even though the prosecution could retry the case, I doubt they will.
• I had a misspelling in my Power Point presentation during jury selection that one of the jurors pointed out by saying (while looking at the screen), "I don't know what that sentence means?"
• I told her that being corrected on my spelling is a "daily occurrence in my life." The judge, a frequent blog reader, laughed out loud.
• Your new assistant county attorney who was in charge of the case did a good job. (No, I'm not just sucking up.)
• For the first time ever, I asked the panel what they thought about the statement, "It's better that 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man be convicted." Most agreed.
• Trials wear me out.
• I'm doing all this again on a different DWI case on Thursday.
• Someone might challenge me, but I bet I have tried more DWI cases than anyone else in the history of Wise County.
• And I still get extremely nervous.
• I always wear a shade of yellow tie on the first day of trial.