Defense Witnesses

As witness for the defense, you have a pretty easy job. You basically just do two things...

  • study up and know your statement
  • answer the questions the lawyers ask you

It's really that simple.

The only tricky part might be that some questions aren't exactly spelled out in your statement. If you get asked a question like that, just answer using common sense. If you don't know, say that you don't know. Don't go making up a bunch of stuff that'll throw the case off. Again, your job is to: (1) answer according to the statement, (2) just answer with common sense, or (3) say you don't know.

To get started, you need to read and study up on your statement. Go to the Links page to read up.

Pre-Trial Assignment

For now, I'm going to give you a trial-based assignment from American History to work on until trial time.

Choose one of these cases:

  • John Wayne Gacy
  • The Lindbergh baby
  • Civil War trial of Henry Wirz
  • Charles Manson
  • Sacco & Vanzetti
  • The Howard Hughes hoax
  • Scottsboro 9 (aka. the Scottsboro Boys)
  • Sam Sheppard

  1. Google around, read about the case, analyze it, and create a chart such as:
  2. section 1: summary of case (include non-disputed facts to generate an overview)
  3. section 2 and 3: summarize evidence/arguments for each side
  4. section 4: offer your opinion or vote as if you were on a jury to decide the case
Your chart will look like this:

 Your Trial Name
Summary & Non-Disputed Facts Evidence for Side A Evidence for Side B
facts go here evidence goes here evidence goes here
your overall opinion (do this last) evaluation of evidence here evaluation of evidence here