In my ongoing research of what jurors think and how they decide cases, I am once again reminded of the enduring “CSI effect,” and how lawyers would do well to pay more attention to it.
Simply put, the “CSI effect” is jurors’ overriding, sometimes obsessive, need to explore for themselves every bit of physical evidence in an attempt to come to a fair and just decision. This is true whether the case is civil or criminal. Contracts are scrutinized, emails pored over and signatures examined with the same zeal as skid marks and bloodstains.
What’s the lesson here? It’s up to you, the attorney, to look at your evidence every which way and give a forceful, compelling, interpretation to your evidence so it cannot be re-interpreted in some unfavorable way by a jury that examines the evidence with a keener eye than yours. Use visuals of all kinds, videos, graphics, charts, and mock-ups where appropriate, to emphasize and bring home your position on the evidence. Even when there is no way for you or your experts to say with conviction “Here’s the smoking gun!” offer the jurors the strongest probable interpretation that can be drawn from the evidence.
Leaving
the interpretation up to the jurors is taking a chance you can ill afford when
you want to win.
