E Law Clinic Videos

The nine videos below were produced by: Rodney Richard Rusca, Sergio Benavides, and Vang Heu. The group all met and became friends at The Fresno County Public Defenders’ Office and created www.elawclinic.com. They realized that not all new lawyers are adequately prepared for jury trial as they all went through the trial learning experience together. The group had to ask their senior attorneys for help, who would then share a variety of stories and suggestions. Not everyone has a senior attorney or has enough time to talk to as many of them as our group did. These stories and suggestions found their way into the videos below.

The videos walk you through the entire criminal jury selection, “voir dire,” process. The defendant is on trial for resisting, delaying, and/or obstructing police officers, so many of the questions and suggestions deal with that subject, but many can be used for any type of trial. The first three videos examine what the defense attorney does with his time with the objections of the prosecution as well and the rulings of the judge. The second three videos follow the prosecution as they reverse roles in selection. The last three videos watch the attorneys argue over “for cause” challenges, for cause challenges are when a judge can excuse jurors for certain reasons and not require the use of a “peremptory challenge”. Peremptory challenges occur when the attorney excuses a juror and needs not give a reason. In Fresno County criminal jury trial cases, each side gets ten (10) peremptory challenges.