BLS Library Blog

Each year, the American Bar Association, Section of Litigation publishes thousands of books to enhance trial practice skills of lawyers and law students on subjects from evidence to discovery to client privilege and skills for the examination of witnesses at trial and in discovery. The Brooklyn Law School Library collection has many of these titles that aspiring trial lawyers can review before starting the practice of law. The latest acquisition, MacCarthy on Impeachment: How to Find and Use These Weapons of Mass Destruction (Call No. KF8950 .M33 2016) by Terence F. MacCarthy, Executive Director of the Federal Defender Program in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and his two sons, is a relatively short 172 page volume that explores in detail impeachment of witnesses, which the author defines as cross-examination on “matters affecting the credibility of the witness” or “that which challenges veracity”. Impeachment is often used to show that the witness is, at worst, a liar, a difficult task that requires the cross examiner to go for the jugular. An easier goal of impeachment is to show that a witness is mistaken. Another type of impeachment discussed in the book is motivation or bias impeachment the constitutional dimension of which was firmly recognized in Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308 (1974).

There are many books on evidence and trial advocacy, including MacCarthy on Cross Examination (Call No. KF8920 .M326 2007) by the same author, but little specifically on impeachment. It is one of the most confusing and misunderstood parts of the trial for both trial lawyers and judges. Just as cross examination is the most difficult of trial skills, impeachment, usually a part of cross examination, is even more difficult. Many trial lawyers do not know what they can or cannot do to impeach. This new title offers trial lawyers “weapons of mass destruction” with instruction on how to use them. This groundbreaking work is an indispensable resource for trial attorneys seeking to improve their skills and better serve their clients.

The book discusses sixteen ways to impeach a witness in sixteen chapters, the last two of which deal with expert witnesses. Some chapters include citations to the Federal Rules of Evidence in parentheses. The chapter are:

• Chapter One: Inconsistent Statements (FRE 613)
• Chapter Two: Contradictions – Contradictory Evidence
• Chapter Three: Motivation
• Chapter Four: Truthfulness (FRE 608)
• Chapter Five: Convictions (FRE 609)
• Chapter Six: What the Witness Could Have Done but Did Not Do
• Chapter Seven: Capacity
• Chapter Eight: Bad Acts, Crimes, and Wrongs (FRE 404(b))
• Chapter Nine: Habit (FRE 406)
• Chapter Ten: Writing Used to Refresh Memory (FRE 612)
• Chapter Eleven: Admissions (FRE 801(d)(2))
• Chapter Twelve: The Hearsay Declarant (FRE 806)
• Chapter Thirteen: Character Witnesses
• Chapter Fourteen: Sex Offense or Sexual Assault Cases (FRE 412 to 415)
• Chapter Fifteen: Expert’s Résumé (FRE 702)
• Chapter Sixteen: Learned Treatises (FRE 803(18))

At the end of the volume is a useful list of MacCarthy’s Rules of Trial Advocacy including these sample admonitions:

• “The lectern is for putting things on not for standing behind.”
• “Speak in a courtroom the way you would speak in a bar. You speak in a bar to practice speaking in a courtroom.”
• “Do not legalize.”
• “The importance of eye contact and a smile.”
• “Do not use fillers – i.e. “and”, “like”, “ah”.
• “Your stories should paint pictures.”

With the fractured Fifth Circuit ruling today that Texas’ voter ID law violates the Voting Rights Act and the Presidential election quickly approaching, you may be interested in learning more about the law on voting rights.  To research the issue, you can search the SARA catalog or WorldCat for the subject, Voting—United States or Suffrage—United States.  The Brooklyn Law School Library has over 100 different titles on the topic.  Some of the more recent acquisitions are listed below. 

• Charles Bullock et al., The Rise and Fall of the Voting Rights Act (2016).
• Michael Smith et al., State Voting Laws in America: Historical Statutes and Their Modern Implications (2015).
• Henry Flores, Latinos and the Voting Rights Act: The Search for Racial Purpose (2015).
• Donathan L. Brown & Michael Clemons, Voting Rights Under Fire: The Continuing Struggle for People of Color (2015).
• Gary May, Bending Toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy (2013).

July 14 is famous as Bastille Day in English-speaking countries. In France, the day is called La Fête Nationale (the National Holiday) and was originally called Fête de la Fédération (“federation feast”) to celebrate the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille and the end of the French Revolution. The French celebrate the day each year, referring to it as Le Quatorze Juillet (the fourteenth of July). Like Independence Day in the United States, it is a national holiday in France. The day celebrates the fall of the Bastille when just under a thousand Parisians attacked the prison releasing its seven inmates. Like the 4th of July, it marks the beginning of republican democracy and the end of tyrannical rule. The French national anthem, La Marseillaise, which originates from the revolution, does not commemorate the storming of the Bastille. Rather it celebrates the three tenets of the republican national motto: “liberty, equality and fraternity”.

In United States history, July 14 is the date when one of the most egregious breaches of the U.S. Constitution was enacted by Congress, the Sedition Act of 1798. In direct violation of the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech, the Sedition Act permitted the prosecution of individuals who voiced or printed what the government deemed to be malicious remarks about the president or government of the United States. The infamous Alien and Sedition Acts were four laws passed by the Federalist controlled Congress stemming from fears of the French revolution, specifically the Reign of Terror, and an undeclared naval war with France. The Federalists were fearful of revolutionary support growing in the United States among Irish and French immigrants and from Democratic-Republicans, sympathetic to the French cause, who wished to oust the Federalists from office. Fourteen Republicans, mainly journalists, were prosecuted, and some imprisoned, under the act. Among the prosecutions were the following:

• James Thomson Callender, in his book “The Prospect Before Us” called the Adams administration a “continual tempest of malignant passions” and the President a “repulsive pedant, a gross hypocrite and an unprincipled oppressor”. He was indicted and convicted in 1800, fined $200 and sentenced to nine months in jail.
• Matthew Lyon wrote an essay in the Vermont Journal accusing the administration of “ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish avarice”. He was fined $1,000 and sentenced to four months in jail.
• Benjamin Franklin Bache accused George Washington of incompetence and financial irregularities, and charged the “the blind, bald, crippled, toothless, querulous Adams” with nepotism and monarchical ambition in his newspaper “The Aurora”. He was arrested in 1798 but he died of yellow fever before trial.
• David Brown set up a liberty pole in Dedham, Massachusetts with the words, “No Stamp Act, No Sedition Act, No Alien Bills, No Land Tax, downfall to the Tyrants of America; peace and retirement to the President; Long Live the Vice President”. He was arrested and tried, fined $480, and sentenced to eighteen months in prison.
• Luther Baldwin of Newark, New Jersey, who, following the adjournment of Congress in July 1798, when President Adams and his wife were traveling through Newark past a local tavern, heard one of the patrons say, “There goes the President and they are firing at his ass.” Baldwin said “he did not care if they fired thro’ his ass.” He was arrested and later convicted of speaking seditious words tending to defame the President and Government of the United States. He was fined $150, assessed court costs and expenses, and sent to jail until he paid the fine and fees.

Readers interested in this dark time in American history can learn more by reviewing two titles recently added to the Brooklyn Law School Library collection. The first is Press and Speech Under Assault: The Early Supreme Court Justices, the Sedition Act of 1798, and the Campaign against Dissent by Wendell Bird (Call No. KF9397.A3281798 B57 2016). The other is The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798: Testing the Constitution by Terri Diane Halperin (Call No. KF9397.A3281798 H35 2016). Interestingly, the U.S. Supreme Court never heard a case to decide whether the Alien and Sedition Acts were constitutional. The Sedition Act expired on March 3, 1801, the last day of the first and only presidential term of John Adams.