The Eyes Have It: Does Your Witness Know How to Look at Jurors?

 

Telling your witness to look at the jurors during their testimony without teaching them how to do so can be fatal to your case. 

A scared, anxious witness may only dare a quick terrified glance mid-sentence at the jurors, which confirms in the jurors’ minds that yes, this witness is surely hiding something. So much for the witness’s credibility.

Or a witness may attempt to “duke it out” during cross by glaring at the jurors during their response, rather than focusing on opposing counsel. This does not benefit your case.

Help your witness look at the jury in a way that enhances their credibility even as it satisfies jurors’ need to see the witness’s eyes to determine veracity. Which, as many of us will remember, is why our mothers would say: “Look me in the eyes when you’re talking to me!”

During direct, suggest that your witness, when they have a response of a couple of sentences or more, begin their answer by looking at you, then turn out to the jurors and look at different jurors during the bulk of their response, to conclude their response by turning back to you during the last few words. If the witness can angle their body very slightly towards the jury box, then turning out towards the jurors is smoother. All this sounds easy, and certainly becomes easy, but only with practice.

I have found video-recorded role-play to be the most effective way to help witnesses get comfortable with turning to the jurors. It’s best to do this during direct, because during cross, the witness will rarely be given an opportunity to respond with more than a few words, and focusing on opposing counsel is their primary responsibility at that point.

“Look at the jurors,” yes, is a critical and essential instruction, but how it is done can make all the difference to your case.

 

Use Visual “Bullets” to Bring Home Your Salient Points

 

You spend hours, if not days, honing your opening, crafting your expert examination questions, drilling down your closing arguments.

As well you should, for there’s nothing like diligent preparation to ensure solid trial work. However, as important as your preparation is, how the jurors are going to receive the result of all that intense prep is equally important.

Studies consistently reveal that people forget most readily what they hear. Memory is far better for things that people see or touch. So it’s not only what has long been established - that people absorb communication better when it’s visual as well as auditory - but also that words are too easily forgotten.

And if there’s anything you need when those jurors go into the jury room, it’s for them to remember your salient points.

The temptation is to reproduce on PowerPoint or other visual media, lots of text, so that jurors both see and hear relevant testimony. That’s certainly useful, but you might also consider taking a page from Steve Jobs’ presentations. Regardless of what one may think about the man or his product, Jobs’ presentations are universally considered among the most compelling ever.

Jobs mastered the art of a single image capturing the essence of his point. Sometimes a single word, or a single number. These are the visual equivalent of “bullet points,” but with far more effectiveness than the usual list of bullet points since images are easily and often forcefully, remembered.

Help your jurors take your salient points into the jury room - with visual “bullets.”