January 8, 2018
I awaken early and begin to get back into the trial I will have in March in Boulder.
I answer some emails from co-counsel and from my client. Then I begin to go over my opening statement. I have a strange problem. I have too much to say. I have too many good points.
A theory about trial work is the case is won in opening statement. Then the attorney needs to maintain the trust of the jury by delivering the promised evidence and he will win. It’s a theory that many lawyers swear by, and it of course is gross simplification. I think that the case is often won or lost in cross-examination. But after 300 plus jury trials, I understand the concept. I must not make a claim in opening that I cannot deliver unambiguously.
I am convinced that my client is innocent. I have no doubt. Defending an innocent client charged with a felony is the most stressful case. Defending a guilty client has almost no stress. You do the best you can. You want to win with the same intensity but if you lose, an innocent man will not be facing jail time. There were very few cases when I was working for the public defender where my client was flat out innocent. Sometimes my client was not guilty of the exact crime he was charged with, but he was usually guilty of something. I am using the pronoun “he” partly because I represented very few women and partly because I resent having to use he/she when meaning is the goal and political correctness is burdensome.
Anyway, the point I am trying to make is I am crafting an opening statement that I will deliver to the jury, and I am having trouble keeping it from becoming a rambling mess full of examples of when the accusers were lying. There are that many lies I can prove!! The “gay couple” that claim my client was stalking them have testified in two hearings and in depositions. They can’t get their story straight manly because it is a fabrication.
My biggest problem is that I am going in front of a Boulder Jury that will be sympathetic to whatever gay people say. They will feel pressure to believe them. Pressure not to believe that they are the problem, that they are the dishonest ones who filed a false police report.
That is exactly what happened. I am not going to go into detail but my opening statement as written is over 50 pages typed. It is too long already, it doesn’t flow as I keep wanting to say “and another thing”, “and another thing”. I still have some juicy things to say.
On top of that, I know that the Judge will limit the time I have to deliver my opening and I don’t know, at this time, know what that limit will be. An hour? 45 minutes? 30 minutes?
I wrote the incomplete first draft in late November. Now I have to read it again carefully to make sure I am not adding something that is already in there, to see if I can clean it up, shorten it, add the juicy things that are missing and move on to other things that need to be done to prepare for trial.
I work in bed with my laptop as long as I can before falling back to sleep.
Adam and I have breakfast together and walk to a phone store where he must make a claim for his phone, which was accidentally dropped in the swimming pool when he was visiting Boulder just before his trip to Sri Lanka. He lives on Melbourne Street, which is an extension of Queen Street, which is the main shopping street of Brisbane. We walk the 12-15 bocks to the phone store, which turns out to take just a little too much time for my plans.
I have a business meeting with the CEO of Ecofibre, an Australian company that makes hemp products that I invested in in August of 2017. It is a private company that is gearing up to go public. It makes CBD pills and ointment, it grows hemp for fibre (Australian spelling), it grows hemp for food, and it grows hemp to turn into a charcoal product that conducts electricity. It will go public in 13 months. There are things the CEO can tell me now legally that he will not be able to tell me as a stockholder after it goes public without violating the insider trading laws. Adam wants to come along. He is running too late to make the meeting since he needs or feels the need to change clothing. I go alone. Adam is very disappointed. My phone is only working well when I can connect to the Internet. I wasn’t able to, so I could not push the meeting back the 45 minutes Adam needed to make the meeting. At the meeting I asked the CEO if he would meet with Adam next week. He agreed.
After the meeting I come back to my room and unwind a bit. Adam and I get a very fine Vietnamese meal at restaurant between his apartment and my hotel. There is a great ice cream shop on the street level of his apartment building. We both have an ice cream. I return to my hotel with that strange feeling from jet lag that I am dog tired and can’t sleep. I have a short conversation on Skype with Elana (my friend to lives in Byron Bay) and consider the possibilities of her coming to Melbourne to visit me, or me going there. We both say the same thing I would love to see you if you can come here. It isn’t going to happen.
January 9, 2018
The next morning, I go to Adam’s apartment and Adam reminds me how to play “Romanza”. I had not played it for months and forgot parts of it. It’s almost noon when Adam and I go to an Asian/Japanese vegan restaurant to have a late breakfast/ lunch. I can’t eat what they bring me which I don’t think is what I ordered, so we go back to the same restaurant we had dinner at and I have a bowl of Chicken Pho. We have a long discussion about American politics. Adam is neither a Democrat nor Republican, but he is a devil’s advocate and challenges my opinions often. This time we are arguing the relative merits of raising the minimum wage, which I believe is not only a good thing to do for the economy but also a moral thing to do for the poor. He says he is an agnostic on the subject, but he is fierce in his attack. As we argue, I secretly enjoy watching him parse my arguments and challenge me.
Afterward we walk together back to my room and get my workout clothing so that we can work out in gym area of his apartment building. It is a small gym but adequate. We get a good workout, pushing each other to force out another rep then another. Adam does 24 pull-ups after doing dumbbell curls. Pull up use the biceps, the same muscles. It is an impressive display in a man who is 6’2″ and weighs over 180 pounds.
After the workout, we go back to his apartment, take showers, and chill out until dinnertime. We go to an Indian restaurant and order too much. We end up taking the leftovers home. With leftovers in a bag, we still go to the ice cream shop and get the smallest scoop they sell just to have an excuse to spend a few more moments together. Tomorrow is my last day. He plans to show me the medical school in the morning.
Back at my apartment, I write up the last two days and crawl into bed. I am hoping that the workout will be the impetus I need to collapse for a good night’s sleep.
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