Speaker 1: How to Make a Jury Believe You Are Innocent. Hey guys, I'm Jeff Hampton with Hampton Criminal Defense Attorneys. Today I want to talk to you about presumption of innocence. Now first of all, I want to talk to you for a couple of minutes about what is this concept of presumption of innocence? Does it, how does it affect a criminal jury trial? But then more importantly, how do you actually apply this concept in the situation of convincing a jury that you're actually innocent of a criminal case? Now, before we get started, let me just introduce to you this concept of the presumption of innocence. Some people say, well, isn't this guaranteed under the United States Constitution? Well, not necessarily. There is a law or this day, there is a court precedent out there under Taylor versus Kentucky. The U.S. Supreme Court did recognize it as a basic requirement of a fair trial, is that it is absolutely required that a jury presume someone is innocent. So in order to have a fair trial, what does that word presume mean? Well, it essentially means they have to believe you're innocent from the very beginning. In other words, unless the state or the government, federal or state, can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone has committed each and every element of the crime, they must find that individual not guilty of the crime. So they, in order to even get there, they have to presume that individual is innocent. So let's talk about this for a second. We can sit there all day and instruct someone that they should believe that someone's innocent. But how do you actually get a jury to believe that? I mean, telling someone they're supposed to do it and getting them to believe it are two different things. I want to kind of pull back the curtain and share some strategies that have been used by attorneys, as well as myself and our law firm in what I believe is one of the most important portions of a jury trial, a criminal jury trial, and that's jury selection. Because, look, I've got some other videos that I'm addressing this, but a criminal jury trial, really and truly, during jury selection and opening statement, you can make the biggest impression. Sometimes people think it's closing argument. Not so much. Usually, determining who people are before they ever get on the jury is the best chance you have of winning your case. And so we're going to talk, I'm going to have several videos covering over a video series here talking about jury selection. How do you make sure that you have a fair jury if you're going into a criminal jury trial? So one of the things that we talk about is, one of the things that we do in jury selection is that we begin to try to find, you know, ways to help a jury look at a situation and decide, look, how does someone actually look if they're innocent or if they're guilty? In fact, one of the ways that I'll do it is I'll actually speak to a juror in a, let's say, let's say if you've got potentially, let's say, now I'm going to talk about Texas, but let's say you've got a felony jury trial that you're on, maybe a murder case, maybe an aggravated assault, deadly weapon. You could have 60 plus jurors sitting there during jury selection, listening to the attorneys talk to them about the law, right? Well, one of the things that's almost better to ask a lot more questions about someone's already preconceived ideas about what they think about someone or what they think about the law rather than educating them the entire time. One of the things that we will do is look at them and say, hey, listen, many of you have heard that the concept, the eyes are the mirror of the soul, right? Is it just common sense that sometimes we sit here and we look at each other and we size people up? Maybe you're sitting there right now looking at my client and thinking, I wonder if he's innocent. I wonder if he's guilty. The problem is it's real easy to label someone guilty because they're sitting in the actual chair of the defendant, the person who's being charged with the crime. Now, I'll tell you a funny story here. One time I was actually with my law partner and we were in a trial and I was standing there. I was sitting there. My partner was sitting next to me. And then, of course, the person we were representing was sitting right next to me. And he was looking really nice. I mean, he was wearing a really nice suit. And my partner was standing up during jury selection. And he asked, they asked, what do you think when you look over here? What do you think? Do you think this person is innocent or guilty? And immediately they all looked at me and said, yeah, that guy right there must be the guilty one, right? And so immediately they thought I was the defendant. They thought I was the person that was charged with the crime, right? That tells you a bit apparently how I looked. So anyway, the point of the matter is people look and they judge someone immediately. They say, is that the guy charged? That dirty rat, he must have done it. If he's sitting right there, then he must have done something wrong or he wouldn't be sitting here to begin with. So it's really important to understand. I ask jurors this. I say, let me ask you a question. How does a young man, let's say there's a young man we're representing, how does a young man charged with aggravated assault or how does a young man charged with drug charges look if he's innocent? How does someone look that way? What if he's sitting next to you right now and he looks like he's afraid? Do innocent people look afraid if they know they're being judged by people in a large courtroom like this? What if it's possible that you think him looking afraid, you now believe you think he looks guilty? What's the difference between whether someone is afraid, whether they're guilty or they're innocent? These are really good questions. Would an innocent person who's done nothing wrong, is it possible they might look angry? Is it possible they're looking here saying, I don't know how I got in this place. How is it possible I'm sitting in this courtroom when I've done nothing wrong? Is it possible you could mistake their look of anger as a sign of guilt? Is it possible you could be misunderstanding them? In fact, one of the questions we ask jurors, how many in here have ever been misunderstood? How many have ever tried to look over at your spouse or someone you know and you meant it one way and they took it a totally, completely the opposite way and they judged you for it? So this is really important. Maybe this person doesn't look like you think they should look. What does an innocent person look like? What does a guilty person look like? You have to educate the jury to understand. They have preconceived notions that in their mind, they're looking at someone. If they're in a courtroom, they must have done something wrong. It's very important if your lawyer is not taking the steps to make sure that this is handled properly and really opening up, kind of pulling back the curtain to make a juror think about this, then you're going to put yourself in a bad spot if you're in a criminal jury trial. Now, what's the real goal here? The real goal is to identify the nuts. Identify the people who have already decided they think you're guilty. Identify the people who think anybody who's ever arrested by a police officer must have done something wrong and they deserve whatever they're going to get. And then what your attorney needs to do is strike those people off the jury. And in fact, if they'll admit that they will not presume you to be innocent, if they'll admit that they're going to hold something against you, your attorney can actually strike them for cause, which means because they will not follow the law, they are forced to leave the courtroom and they cannot be considered as a potential juror. So it's really important that you do this. And in fact, one of the things that we tell during a jury selection is we'll tell them, look, during the course of the trial, there are going to be all kinds of witnesses that will take the stand and they're going to testify to various things. Every time someone testifies, the testimony is going to be heard by our client. And this is one of the things we tell them. These people are going to get up and testify. Our client's going to hear what these people say. Is it possible that Mr. Smith sitting next to me, this young man, if he hears a police officer or hears a witness get up and claim that it was him and it wasn't him, is it possible he might look very upset on his face? Is it possible that he might get frustrated or angry? Maybe he's in disbelief that someone is standing up there testifying about him in such a way that he's innocent, he hasn't done anything wrong. And what we do is we ask them to say, listen, how would an innocent person react if they hear someone else talking about them and they know it wasn't them? How would an innocent person react if they hear someone pointing a finger or pointing a finger at them or a police officer claiming they did something they didn't do? Would they act angry? Would they act upset? What if they don't act in response to what you see? What if they don't meet your expectation? Is it possible, can you leave room for the possibility that they may not respond the way you expect them to respond? And by the way, when you ask these kind of questions during jury selection, and a criminal attorney does this artfully, it's very clear the people who have already decided they have no problem passing judgment against someone and those who will stop and go, Man, maybe I am bringing some prejudices and biases. Maybe I am bringing some preconceived notions into this conversation. And maybe I should stop and give this person the benefit of the doubt. So it's really important. The reality is, I tell them, the reality is my client who's sitting next to me, Mr. Smith sitting over here, this young man, he can't do anything when these people are saying these things about him and he's done nothing wrong. He can't respond to them. He has to sit there and suffer through each and every person that he listens to, their testimony. Even if it's wrong or a lie, he has to take it. And what I help them understand is, do you realize, do you understand that's what's going on? Because jurors, the reality is, jurors will look over at the person that's being accused and they're looking for any sort of body language, any sort of reaction. And judgmental people will look and any reaction whatsoever, they're going to judge them and say they must be guilty. But what if they don't react? Well, then they say, look at them, they're cold as ice. They must be guilty. So your criminal attorney needs to really be, number one, educating the jury, but at the same time, helping them understand. Some of these people have already made up their mind. Your attorney needs to be getting those people off that jury, doing everything they can to either strike them for cause or using a peremptory challenge to get them off because they've already decided they can't be fair. Now, I ask this question straight up. I say, how many of you here think that you could judge someone as guilty or innocent just by how they look, just by the look on their face? How many of you would try to do that in this case? And then I actually go through there and I ask each one of the jurors, Mr. Johnson, would you promise me that you will not judge Mr. Smith based on whether you think he's guilty or innocent by the look on his face? Will you promise me you'll give him the benefit of the doubt that if he has some sort of reaction or you don't like the look on his face when someone else is testifying, will you promise to give me the benefit of the doubt, to give him the benefit of the doubt, that it could be because he's upset because he's innocent and he can't believe this person's testifying against him in this way and he doesn't know what else to do. He's frustrated. He's scared. He's afraid how this is going to turn out. I asked him this question and I will tell you, almost all of them will turn around and say yes. And I'll tell you, they'll admit it's a very unreliable way to judge someone and I promise I won't do that. But then you can see the look on some people's faces. There are some people who will say, well, I can't promise you that. That's when the attorney needs to dive in there and say, okay, so if it's just to make sure I understand and there's nothing wrong with this, sir, but if you're telling me that you're going to go into this whole conversation with the understanding that you're not going to give him that benefit of the doubt, that you're going to assume that he must have done something wrong merely because he's sitting in that chair and you won't give him the presumption of that innocence. In that situation, it makes it more likely your attorney can strike that individual for cause and get them off the jury. You want to try to get a group of people who are going to give you a fair shot during this jury trial, okay? Now, one of the things that we do, I ask them straight up. I'll even use other jurors and here's a technique that you can use is to say, how many in here have ever been misunderstood? Ms. Smith or Ms. Johnson or Ms. whoever, right? I'll say, tell me a little bit about how you were misunderstood. Tell me of an example of a situation that came up where you were misunderstood. And they'll share a story. They'll say, well, actually, there was a time when I said something to someone at the grocery store and they completely took me the wrong way. They blew up at me and I just couldn't believe it. And I'll stop and I'll say, now, is that how you meant it? Did you mean, did they misinterpret what you said? And how did you feel when they misinterpreted you? You were trying to clear it up. No matter what you said, there was no way that you could clear that up because they had already formed a judgment about you. They'd already made up their mind about you. And have you ever been misunderstood by family members, people who care about you, but they're clouded by their emotion? Have those sort of situations ever come up? And has someone ever thought that you were angry when you were not angry? And they just jumped to that conclusion. Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever been totally innocent in your response, but yet your innocent response, that other person interpreted it as being guilty? Has that ever happened? And she'll say, in those situations, that person will say, yes, that's exactly what happened. In that situation, an attorney is being very artful. They are actually placing that juror in the place of their client. So it's helping that juror relate to the person being charged and recognizing, man, that's a tough spot. And I'll even ask them, how do you think that makes my client feel? And I'll never use the word client, but how do you think that makes Mr. Smith feel when he hears you saying that there have been times you recognize that people can be misunderstood and that there's a chance that you could misinterpret the look on his face or even something that might be said during an exchange in a courtroom? Is it possible that that would make him feel nervous? Do you think that makes him feel scared or afraid or concerned? In that situation, good attorneys will help the jury relate to the client, and it humanizes them and helps put that cloak of the presumption of innocence back onto the individual being charged with the crime. So, you know, sometimes people... Look, the reality of it is you can't change people, okay? People are what they are, but you identify who they are by asking these probing questions and making them admit to you there's been times they've been misunderstood, they've been misinterpreted, and it personalizes it. It takes that negativity off of the client. And so one of the things we do is I'll say, could I have your assurance that Mr. Smith, as he sits here today, doesn't have to worry about how you will look at her or him, about how they're going to judge you because of the way he combs his hair or maybe because of the way he's sitting here or the type of shirt that he's wearing or the nervousness that he has or the notes that he might be taking because he doesn't know what else to do because he can't believe that this person's saying what they're saying. And each juror must commit to that, and I'll ask every juror that question. You can look at their eyes, and you can tell whether or not that's something that they're willing to commit to. So when I started this, I said, these are kind of some tricks or tips that you use that your attorney should be implementing to understand it's important. Yes, can you make that juror believe you're innocent? Well, I can tell you this. There are ways that you can relate the client to the jury where now that juror is going to look at you and say, that juror will look at your client and go, you know what? Maybe he didn't do it. Maybe what I'm hearing is I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt. And then if you've got people who won't do that, which is what they're supposed to do under the law, and you have a right to a fair trial, you have a right to a presumption of innocence. And in that situation, this is just one example where a good criminal lawyer will use this type of technique to not only educate the jury, but also get the nuts off the jury who are not going to give you a fair trial. So listen, I hope this was of some assistance to you. I'm Jeff Hampton again with Hampton Criminal Defense Attorneys. If you have a case in the North Texas area, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We'd be happy to help you. Can't wait to show you our next video series on jury selection and some different additional tips you can use to help yourself if you're facing a criminal trial. Thanks.