Issues in Criminal Law
By Attorney John D. Cahners

The verdicts in the Michael Jackson case, and the O.J. Simpson case before it, point out, once again, a fundamental failure in the media’s coverage of criminal cases. A criminal jury trial is not like a sporting event where one counts the “points” from each side to see who wins or loses. Yet, the press treats each trial as if that were the case.

Criminal jury trials are frequently won or lost because of the importance of one or more factors that the jury itself finds important, not issues the media feels are important. Facts should be analyzed for their importance or ability to convince based on how each juror will most likely look at them, not on how each juror should look at them. Understand that one important factor can outweigh all the arguments presented by the other side.

The possession of hard-core child pornography, or the lack of it, might be the single determining factor in a case like this. Or, Michael Jackson’s perceived peculiarity may have been the determining factor. One thing is for sure: you will rarely get the real reasons for a verdict from talking with the jurors after the case. Although this is not always true, frequently an experienced trial attorney must read between the lines of what the jurors say to determine their true motivation.

Also, the most important part of any jury trial is the part that is almost entirely ignored by the media: who are the actual people selected as that jury and what are their personal backgrounds, biases or interests? How did they actually answer questions asked during the jury selection process? What are their personal beliefs?

Imagine, running a jury trial is a lot like presenting a Broadway play and wondering, nervously, what kind of reviews it will receive. Your reviews will be a lot different if you get to select your critics, than if you just take your chances with whomever you get. For instance, who would pick critics who only like musicals, if what you are putting on is serious drama? Or what playwright would select a critic that already showed a dislike of the play’s leading actor?

An experienced trial attorney, such as there was in the Michael Jackson case, has learned the hard way what works and what does not work in convincing trial jurors. The defense attorney cannot rely on what should influence people, but must learn from experience what actually does influence people. You only get this kind of knowledge from hands-on experience – and a lot of it.

About the Attorney

John D. Cahners, a former senior prosecutor with the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, has been sucessfully defending clients with a wide variety of cases from DUI to homicide.