Sheri’s Sidebar Edition #21 Dec. 15, 2023  Last Edition 2023

1. Are you aware that you can assure a jury that you can seal and keep confidential that jury questionnaire where you just asked all those personal questions about an individual’s own and friends and families sexual history?
2. Are you aware of whether a client’s work community is sufficient to use for character reputation evidence?
3. Do you know whether Washington Courts allow character reputation evidence to be admitted for “good sexual morality?”
4. Are you prepared for the common State arguments for the Court to deny admissibility of the reputation “good sexual moral” evidence?
5. Did you know that it is inappropriate during plea negotiations where the African American defendant is present, for the prosecutor to say to him, “your jury will not necessarily be a jury of your peers (while pointing at him); it’ll be a jury of OUR peers (pointing to themselves and the other white attorney in the room), be a lot of white folks.”?
6. But wait, there is more…..Were you also aware that AFTER having said THAT, it apparently is also inappropriate to double down and tell the African American defendant who is charged with Human Sex Trafficking (among other things) that …[T]his meeting is not to threaten you, intimidate you, scare you, [or] anything like that . . . . [J]ust to tell you kind of what you’re looking at, . . . what the potential could be if the case goes to trial.