10 February 2008

Judge Not Allowing Prosecutors to Object Part II

From the Pages of the Louisville Courier Journal (via Kentucky Law Review):
The irony is that a grandstanding Judge Delahanty accused prosecutors of -- you guessed it -- grandstanding, and of wasting the court's time. He could, of course, save even more time if he simply dispensed with having prosecutors involved at all. Justice might not be served, but there would be more opportunities for everybody involved to enjoy an afternoon round of golf.
This is a follow up on the post from earlier today.

I see two possibilites here. The first is that the local prosecutors are being extremely aggresive in their pressing of technically correct, but unneeded objections. We've all seen (usually young) lawyers who object to things like the opposing attorney asking "You're John Smith?" Technically, the objection is proper because the question is leading. However, it accomplishes nothing good because all the opposing attorney is doing is confirming the witness' ID to the court.

The second possibility is that the judge, because of the need to speed through a docket (or similar reasons), is violating the rules of evidence for a purpose he thinks more valuable.

Of course, there's always a third possible reason: the judge just doesn't like prosecutors. However, there'd have to be more evidence to credibly assert that.

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