Trial Question Peccadillos

I got to watch an interesting jury trial yesterday. Voir dire (jury selection) was especially fascinating and I may say more about that later. But one thing I noticed as the trial went on was that the prosecutor tended to greatly overuse the phrases “Did you have occasion to...” or “Did there come a point in time when...” For example, she'd ask a witness: “On or about May 25th, 2005, did you have occasion to look inside your closet?” Or: “Did there come a point in time when you spoke with Joe Smith?”

Why would an attorney ever want to frame questions this way? It just sounds stupid when instead you could just say “On or about May 25th did you look inside your closet?” and “Did you speak with Joe Smith around that time?”

I wonder how many cliche phrases like this lawyers end up using without thinking about it and just because they've heard other lawyers speak this way and think it makes them sound more lawyerly.

Here's a little related lesson from my private book of language peccadillos: “point in time” is almost always a useless and redundant construction. Next time you're tempted to use it (either when writing or speaking), see if dropping two of the three words would really change the meaning of what you're saying or make it less clear. Chances are, simply saying “point” or “time” alone will say everything you want to say. Thus: Did you look in your closet at that point in time? becomes, either: Did you look in your closet at that point? or Did you look in your closet at that time?

Simpler and more concise is almost always better.

(We all have our little hangups, ok?)

Posted 11:28 AM | Comments (6) | 2L summer