What Would Gerry Do?
November 30, 2005
Years ago, I was on the staff of Gerry Spence's Trial Lawyer's College. I fled when it began to feel more like a cult than a college. Still, the ghost of Gerry lingers, and his boast that he never lost a criminal case haunts me like a challenge I cannot meet. I sometimes wonder, what would Gerry do?
Today is one of those days. In the midst of gang-rape trial. Victim just testified. My client's DNA and fingerprints are at the scene. She can't identify him, but one of his cohorts, who turned state's evidence, can.
Yesterday we endured the tearful testimony of the victim, a lovely young woman who went through Hell. Today it's my turn to cross examine her. It is not really the worst set of facts I have defended. That disctinction probably goes to the case in which three daughters testified about their sodomizing father. But I am afraid of this witness. The linked press account recounts well the sum of her testimony. Ouch
I know what Milton would counsel. Hear Satan as he gathers his wounded forces after they are banished from Heaven:
"Consult how we may henceforth most offend
Our enemy, our own loss how repair
How overcome this dire calamity,
What reinforcement we may gain from hope,
If not, what resolution from despair." Paradise Lost.
Resolution from despair. It sometimes seems like a defense lawyer's motto.
But what would Gerry do?