We have also seen witnesses attempt to make eye contact with jurors while the lawyers were at the judge’s bench. A casual, courteous smile is one thing, but an overt effort to make eye contact, or worse, flirt with a juror is another. The same thing holds when a witness or party attempts to make eye contact with a juror during a recess or break. Any such overt attempt should likewise be reported to the trial judge. If a witness or a party makes a reference to a very private part of a juror’s life, it is equally wrong. It can be inadvertent, but it can also be intentional. Let’s say a juror has a child with Down syndrome, which is unknown to anyone in the trial. A witness that just happens to mention they are working with Down syndrome babies would be an obvious effort to create a bond with a juror.

The more money at stake, the greater the possibility that an extensive body of facts has been accumulated about each juror. There is no hard and fast rule, but if you believe there was an effort to create a private bond with you as a juror you, should report it to the trial judge. Simply give the court security officer a note and ask to speak with the judge. Most lawyers are honest and work fairly to represent their clients. However, a client or a witness unknown to the lawyer may attempt this improper connection to a juror.

Sometimes lawyers use juror signals as well. We have seen lawyers use signaling language by phrasing a sentence using a biblical passage in an appeal to an evangelical juror who might recognize the language used as a biblical quote. If in the trial a lawyer uses a quote from Mark Twain and you just happen to have as a hobby studying Mark Twain, there is a possibility the lawyer or a witness knows it and is making such a reference intending to create a private bond with you.

If nothing else, disregard the questionable reference or signaling, assume it was unintentional if you are not certain, and judge the case as if the reference or signal had not been made. Judge the parties as fairly as you would like to be judged. That is justice. It is up to you to make the fight fair.

The real danger to our system of justice is that these experts are hired to convince jurors so the side hiring them wins the case. They are not hired to impartially help the jury determine the truth. We have seen experts who send bills after the trial and that bill is never seen or known by the jury, so their actual charges are concealed from the jury. The possibility therefore exists that the expert could charge more based on the outcome of the case, though they will testify that is not the way they are compensated. We have seen lawyers who have had people sitting out in the courtroom who signal an expert how to answer a question posed by the other lawyer. We have seen these experts volunteer a clue to a juror that the expert has something in common with the jury. In one case, the expert for the other side referred several times to the laws of physics because he knew one of the jurors had a husband who taught physics. We had a defense lawyer admit to us that prior to trial, an expert inquired how he could “help the case,” meaning what could he do to throw in a private signal to a juror or volunteer something unrelated to the question asked to assist the lawyers in his case.

Of course, not all experts are prostitutes for the side hiring them, but many are, so I offer this advice to prospective jurors: Regard with the greatest caution anything an expert witness says, and the more they have testified in court and the more they have charged to do so, the less you should be inclined to believe them. Start off with great skepticism until proved otherwise. No single threat to our jury system is greater than paid expert witnesses hired to sell the jury their version of what happened. It takes very careful attention by jurors to root out the frauds parading around as “experts” for hire. These expert witnesses have in some occasions testified so much that they know just how to act independent and fair. However, they are almost always neither. ~ Attorney Robert G. Kerrigan

Parents do not come to me wanting money. Almost always they want complete answers regarding what happened that caused their child’s death and why. Almost without exception they retain me because they do not want something similar happening to anyone else. Contrary to insurance company assertions, my clients, the parents, are neither greedy nor are they in most cases remotely interested in the financial recovery that might be made. They do not want their child’s death to be forgotten. They want the world to know the precious life that was lost. It is the lawyer’s job to do just that.

There is no exact standard for the jury to determine the measure of the suffering of the parents. Insurance companies always assert that money will not bring the child back. Indeed, it will not, but in our society the one sure way to effect change is to hit them in their pocketbook. Only then do they ever consider changing the circumstances that caused a child’s death so as to prevent another similar death. We are proud of the work we do and honored to be asked to represent parents when a child is accidentally killed. We and other trial lawyers have made this country safer and better for children. This system does not exist in any other country in the world. Virtually every single change in products, medical care, and all kinds of other safety measures were the result of lawyers bringing claims for parents after the needless death of a child. We all seek meaning in our lives, and for parents who will suffer for the rest of their lives, making responsible parties accountable and causing positive changes to prevent a similar death is a small but meaningful help for them as they endure their lifetime of suffering. If they live to be a hundred the loss never abates. Rarely a day goes by that the child is not remembered.

We can’t begin to fully understand the depth of the loss, but we try. ~ Attorney Robert G. Kerrigan

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Flow Chart of Bail Bond Procedure

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