Legal Question in Criminal Law in California
The doubts I have as below : (1)During trial, who will be the first witness to be call by the prosecution for direct examination? (Is it the party who press the charge?)
(2) During trial, who will be the first defense witness to be call by the defense for direct examination? (Is it the defendant?)
(3) if the defense were to ask for sentence reduce, is it after the jury's verdict or during closing statements?
1 Answer from Attorneys
(1) There is no required order. The prosecutor will call her witnesses in the order that makes the most sense for her. There often is no party who pressed charges. Even when there is, it sometimes makes sense not to have him testify at all. In cases where he does testify, there is no reason to assume he will be the one called first.
(2) Here again, there is no required order. Defense counsel will call his witnesses in the order that makes the most sense for him. Note that the defendant does not have to testify at all, so he certainly doesn't have to testify first.
(3) Each side gets to argue about the appropriate sentence after the verdict but before sentencing. Since this happens before the defendant is sentenced, there is nothing to reduce. And except for death penalty cases, the jury normally plays no part in the sentencing phase.
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