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distant Civil Trial in San Francisco and
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I can show you what that looked like
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this is the outside of our courthouse
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and this is The Honorable Harold Khan
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he’s modeling a transparent mask it was
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the concept of the court and Council
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that the potential jurors would wear
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transparent masks as opposed to
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disguises in vorder so we could see
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their facial expressions in their
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mannerisms this is the traditional jury
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box it should hold 24 people in it and
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around it for purposes of jury selection
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but if you look at the yellow cards you
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can see it would only hold three the
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result is the balance of the jurors had
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to be spread out throughout the
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courtroom and here is the back of the
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courtroom you can see the yellow squares
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placed jurors in various positions
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including there in the cheap seats in
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the back back left
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I was also assigned out to the first
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civil socially distanced trial in
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Alameda it was originally scheduled to
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be in Oakland but because of the small
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size of the courtroom it was transferred
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to Hayward here is the Hayward court and
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again I can take you inside because the
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jurors had to be spread out
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we brought in monitors so that the
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jurors could see from different
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positions here again is the jury box it
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should hold at least 12 and again it
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holds only three and just like San
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Francisco here’s the back of the
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courtroom and you can see that the
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jurors are socially distanced throughout
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the courtroom
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the biggest challenge is a lawyer in a
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socially distant trial situation is to
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be able to persuade people who you can’t
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see in other words you can’t see all of
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the jurors at the same time as you would
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in a traditional setting sometimes you
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break the magic rule turning your back
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to a juror you don’t want to do it but
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if they’re sitting behind you that’s
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going to happen also you can’t watch
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their expressions the way they receive
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evidence so you have to find a way to
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concentrate your attention on each of
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the jurors but only for a limited time
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in other words you can’t look at a whole
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box and see them as you normally would
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foreign
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the only advantage to a socially
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distanced trial
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is that some of the jurors are not going
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to pay attention
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so if you’re
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involved in a case where lack of
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attention matters it might be better
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other than that socially distance trials
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are not better than normal trials
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thank you if you’ve never dealt with a
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socially distanced trial before you need
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to go to the courtroom early and often
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you need to figure out where the jurors
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are going to be what they can see and
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hear from their positions and then you
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need to tailor your presentation so that
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all of the jurors are involved that
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might mean bringing in 12 monitors or a
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very very big monitor or a sound
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projection system whatever it takes in
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order to persuade people you need to be
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able to contact them they need to be
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able to hear you and they need to be
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able to see you and you as the lawyer
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are the one responsible for that not the
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municipality that sets up the courtroom