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In the Interest of Justice: Great Opening and Closing Arguments of the Last 100 Years
Drawing from some of the most well-known courtroom cases of our time, this rich and rewarding volume collects more than two dozen of the most memorable opening and closing arguments made by top prosecutors and defense attorneys in the last 100 years. Carefully selected to explore every major aspect and challenge of the legal process, the speeches showcased here highlight the tactics and strategies, colorful language, and stirring rhetoric that lawyers use to win judge and jury to their side. With a shrewd eye for courtroom stratagems and a keen understanding of the social currents that shape them, Manhattan assistant district attorney Joel Seidemann introduces and illuminates each speech from an insider's perspective. From an Israeli prosecutor's heart-wrenching speech against Adolf Eichmann to the chilling reenactment of Timothy McVeigh's meticulous planning of the Oklahoma City bombing, we witness the power of an impassioned presentation to tip the scales toward the fulfillment of justice. Arguments from other landmark trials are included to reveal the smartest tricks of the trial lawyer's trade. Why did O.J. win the criminal case and lose the civil one? Why did the jury acquit the cops who shot Amadou Diallo, even though they fired forty-one shots at an unarmed man? Why was Sean "Puffy" Combs acquitted of all charges after that mysterious shootout in a NYC nightclub? In the Interest of Justice sheds light on such questions and celebrates the fascinating art of courtroom persuasion.
- GenresLawNonfiction
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 27, 2015
This book has some great opening and closing arguments by top-notch attorneys in different types of trials. It's valuable because of the language used by these great attorneys to educate, persuade, and challenge the jury to think through the difficult process of rendering a verdict. It's amazing how personal some of the summations are, particularly Gerry Spence, who frankly acknowledges his nervousness and his goal of getting the jury to understand that the defendant is not guilty, or in the civil realm, that the plaintiff deserves a compensatory reward.
Each argument is preceded by a little introductory passage and comments at the end by the editor. These introductions and comments are well-written, informative. The editor seeks by the comments to describe why he placed the argument in the book in the context of choices that a trial attorney needs to make in order to compose the best type of argument tailored for the case.
A valuable book which I am pleased to recommend, and which I am using to compose my next opening and closing arguments for the jury.
Each argument is preceded by a little introductory passage and comments at the end by the editor. These introductions and comments are well-written, informative. The editor seeks by the comments to describe why he placed the argument in the book in the context of choices that a trial attorney needs to make in order to compose the best type of argument tailored for the case.
A valuable book which I am pleased to recommend, and which I am using to compose my next opening and closing arguments for the jury.
June 12, 2024
I couldn’t help it. I tried a case and I got to give the closing the same day the NY Trump prosecutors did (though they got a more favorable result) and I wanted to go out and find a book like this. I’m sure I’d be better served with something like a trial advocacy textbook or, if I really wanted to be a better criminal lawyer in the courtroom, a primer on evidence or procedure, but the arguments are really the fun part.
It was a neat time to pick up this book, with two highly publicized prosecutions (both politically charged, but on opposite spectrums). I wish I could say I paid close attention to the opens and closings in those cases (because I AM interested in politics, even if only one of these cases was actually ABOUT a king political action), but I didn’t (and besides, they didn’t let people into the court in a meaningful way – something I find really interesting and not a little frustrating).
The book starts with O.J. We get the plaintiff’s opening statement in the civil crime followed by lengthy excerpts of Johnny Cochran’s (the defense) closing argument in the earlier criminal trial. Certainly, the opening is strong – the attorney lays out all of the facts and the timeline in a manner that makes it hard to doubt (and in a civil trial there CAN be doubt) that things happened as he suggests. Cochran is wild. I was a kid when it all went down and I remember impressions of the guy and the ‘If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit,’ but I didn’t realize how effectively he used that a rhetorical device and how he was able to credibly turn it all into a referendum on racist police (he explicitly compares one of the detectives to Hitler.
Next the book tackles the prosecution of Marv Albert for sodomy and assault charges. The details of the Marv Albert assault, as described in the prosecutor’s opening, were pretty gross and I guess if you want to convince a jury to hold someone accountable for their behavior, you ought to make it sound pretty unpleasant. The defense has a tough job following something like that, but the attorney doesn’t waste time with the unsavory stuff “You may not like it, but when you look at this, this is a relationship that was built on sex. That was the relationship between the two of them. Every time they would get together, they would have sex…” “And no doubt there were times that they acted out these various fantasies, not always things that you or I or tother people may agree with…” He focuses on what is so clearly the real issue: consent. But he also paints her (fairly or not, I can’t say, I’m only reading these openings for the first time) as unstable and unpredictable.
Seidemann then covers the case against Puff Daddy (look how history repeats itself!) for a 1999 shooting outside a club. The kids are saying cringe now, right? Because the start of the opening for the defense is cringe: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Sean ‘Puff Daddy.’ You can call him Sean, you can call him Mr. Combs, you can call him Puff Daddy, or even just plain call him Puffy, but what you cannot do in this case, you cannot call him guilty, because from the facts, from the evidence, from the law, you will conclude that he is not guilty.” (This was put on by Attorney Benjamin Brafman, but his co-counsel? That was a fella by the name of Johnny Cochran).
Next up, Seidemann tackles a wild and grisly murder from the seventies in which Jeffrey Macdonald, a charismatic Green Beret and doctor, killed his wife and children. After that, he has a short chapter recounting (by way of a cautionary tale), a few attempts by pro se defendants to open or close themselves (the most entertaining of these was by James Traficant, a sitting Congressman at the time he went on trial). Seidemann then made a slight detour to share a few judicial speeches made at sentencing.
Seidemann eventually gets to the opening statement in the Israeli trial of Adolph Eichman, the architect of the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Problem in Europe’. This is some pretty heavy stuff and an interesting (if dismal) read, but if you’re like me and looking to absorb some good techniques for trying defendants in a rural New Jersey County, it’s probably a bit like apples and oranges. There’s bad folks here, but I’m not likely to prosecute any of Hitler’s best friends. Seidemann writes, in his postscript, “The prosecutor finds it easier to get a conviction when the victim is blameless, while the defense finds it easier to get an acquittal when the victim or government witnesses are unsavory or unlikable.” I mean – sure – but that makes it sound like this particular prosecutor had a pretty easy job.
The prosecution’s opening on the Timothy McVeigh trial was excellent – it does a really great job of walking the jury through all of the circumstantial evidence that they would eventually put on and pieces it together in such a way that the jury can see the whole picture. The crazy plutonium case was interesting in it’s use of analogy for strict liability. The Augustin Ballinas closing is certainly a good exemplar for a civil closing when you’ve got a sympathetic victim. We get the defense closing in the United States v. Bess Myerson, Andy Capasso and Hortense Gabel case, but America’s Mayor was the prosecutor and it would have been interesting to read something from him from before his fall from grace.
It was a neat time to pick up this book, with two highly publicized prosecutions (both politically charged, but on opposite spectrums). I wish I could say I paid close attention to the opens and closings in those cases (because I AM interested in politics, even if only one of these cases was actually ABOUT a king political action), but I didn’t (and besides, they didn’t let people into the court in a meaningful way – something I find really interesting and not a little frustrating).
The book starts with O.J. We get the plaintiff’s opening statement in the civil crime followed by lengthy excerpts of Johnny Cochran’s (the defense) closing argument in the earlier criminal trial. Certainly, the opening is strong – the attorney lays out all of the facts and the timeline in a manner that makes it hard to doubt (and in a civil trial there CAN be doubt) that things happened as he suggests. Cochran is wild. I was a kid when it all went down and I remember impressions of the guy and the ‘If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit,’ but I didn’t realize how effectively he used that a rhetorical device and how he was able to credibly turn it all into a referendum on racist police (he explicitly compares one of the detectives to Hitler.
Next the book tackles the prosecution of Marv Albert for sodomy and assault charges. The details of the Marv Albert assault, as described in the prosecutor’s opening, were pretty gross and I guess if you want to convince a jury to hold someone accountable for their behavior, you ought to make it sound pretty unpleasant. The defense has a tough job following something like that, but the attorney doesn’t waste time with the unsavory stuff “You may not like it, but when you look at this, this is a relationship that was built on sex. That was the relationship between the two of them. Every time they would get together, they would have sex…” “And no doubt there were times that they acted out these various fantasies, not always things that you or I or tother people may agree with…” He focuses on what is so clearly the real issue: consent. But he also paints her (fairly or not, I can’t say, I’m only reading these openings for the first time) as unstable and unpredictable.
Seidemann then covers the case against Puff Daddy (look how history repeats itself!) for a 1999 shooting outside a club. The kids are saying cringe now, right? Because the start of the opening for the defense is cringe: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Sean ‘Puff Daddy.’ You can call him Sean, you can call him Mr. Combs, you can call him Puff Daddy, or even just plain call him Puffy, but what you cannot do in this case, you cannot call him guilty, because from the facts, from the evidence, from the law, you will conclude that he is not guilty.” (This was put on by Attorney Benjamin Brafman, but his co-counsel? That was a fella by the name of Johnny Cochran).
Next up, Seidemann tackles a wild and grisly murder from the seventies in which Jeffrey Macdonald, a charismatic Green Beret and doctor, killed his wife and children. After that, he has a short chapter recounting (by way of a cautionary tale), a few attempts by pro se defendants to open or close themselves (the most entertaining of these was by James Traficant, a sitting Congressman at the time he went on trial). Seidemann then made a slight detour to share a few judicial speeches made at sentencing.
Seidemann eventually gets to the opening statement in the Israeli trial of Adolph Eichman, the architect of the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Problem in Europe’. This is some pretty heavy stuff and an interesting (if dismal) read, but if you’re like me and looking to absorb some good techniques for trying defendants in a rural New Jersey County, it’s probably a bit like apples and oranges. There’s bad folks here, but I’m not likely to prosecute any of Hitler’s best friends. Seidemann writes, in his postscript, “The prosecutor finds it easier to get a conviction when the victim is blameless, while the defense finds it easier to get an acquittal when the victim or government witnesses are unsavory or unlikable.” I mean – sure – but that makes it sound like this particular prosecutor had a pretty easy job.
The prosecution’s opening on the Timothy McVeigh trial was excellent – it does a really great job of walking the jury through all of the circumstantial evidence that they would eventually put on and pieces it together in such a way that the jury can see the whole picture. The crazy plutonium case was interesting in it’s use of analogy for strict liability. The Augustin Ballinas closing is certainly a good exemplar for a civil closing when you’ve got a sympathetic victim. We get the defense closing in the United States v. Bess Myerson, Andy Capasso and Hortense Gabel case, but America’s Mayor was the prosecutor and it would have been interesting to read something from him from before his fall from grace.
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