Matt discusses the impact of State v. Watson out of New Jersey
There was a lot of opinions to summarize, but I got through them all, and there's one in particular I want to talk about. David, you began your career as a trial lawyer, correct?
I did. Okay. Now, have you ever been in a situation where the prosecutor calls an investigator to the stand, and the investigator narrates a video, which ends up being quite damaging to your client's case? Well, as a prosecutor, I was the one calling those investigators, and I did that regularly. And as a defense attorney, I regularly tried to keep those investigators from talking over the video, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully. And anybody watching this video in Philadelphia has had to try and keep Detective Thurston Lucke from testifying over a video and providing some damning evidence against their client. So, I know our viewers have dealt with this problem.
That's a good point. And if the detective was testifying in New Jersey, he would not be allowed to narrate for the amount of time that he does in Philadelphia. The New Jersey Supreme Court last week issued an opinion in the case State v Watson, which talked about two issues. The one I wanted to talk about today was that a detective, an investigator, who has no input into the case other than reviewing video, cannot offer a long-winded narrative.
Hmm. That's interesting. That's very interesting. It's important for all of our viewers to read this opinion. It's a long one. But you can get through it. I'm confident in you. David, do you have anything else you wanna talk about?
Uh, no. As a matter of fact, I just got back from vacation, so I've got no relevant legal information gained over the past week. But I did just have a blast over five days in Door County, Wisconsin, with my old friends from college. Sadly they are old friends from Wisconsin. We've gotten to that point in life. Uh, but it was great to see them, great to see their kids. And I'm sure next week I'll have something relevant and legal to discuss in this video. But for now, just trying to catch up.
Let's hope you could bring something to the table next week. I can't. Thanks for watching. Have a good week.