YOUR HONOR, I OBJECT! PRESERVING THE RECORD FOR APPEAL!

I have talked about how important it is to speak up and object if anything goes on during a court hearing that you believe is a violation of your legal rights. 

 

You have to do this even though a judge might try to intimidate you and try to prevent you from speaking up by lecturing you about not speaking out of turn or telling you that such objections are unnecessary. 

 

It is always important to object. 

 

It is important to object because you might actually alert the judge to a problem right at that moment.  The judge might not respond immediately, but could change course at some point later on during the hearing.  It is rare, but I've seen that happen. 

Raise It or Waive It:

 

The bottom line, though, is that if you are thinking about taking the next step and going to appeal, at the superior court level you have to make sure you have brought to the judge's attention the issues you intend to raise later on appeal. 

 

Appellate Court reviews the record in the case to see whether there are legitimate grounds for appeal.  If you haven't placed your concerns on the record in pleadings, motions, or exhibits presented to the lower court or in your oral presentation to the court reproduced in transcripts of the trial, then you will not be able to appeal the ruling in your case. 

 

As the saying goes, "raise it or waive it." 

 

You can waive your right to object to an issue simply by going along with a ruling without raising an objection. 

 

To make sure you have a record of everything that took place in your case, here are some suggestions:  

 

Side Bar Conferences or Meetings in the Judge's Chambers:  

 

Such meetings are a classic way that important information ends up off the record.  If the Judge makes rulings--for example, on the admissibility of evidence, in meetings like this that are off the record, it will be almost impossible to appeal those decisions. 

 

Therefore, you have to find a way to put them on the record.  The best way to do this is to insist that there is a court reporter during the entire meeting. 

 

If that is not possible, make sure that once you get back in court you put everything that was said on the record by making mention of them once the hearing resumes. 

 

You can also file a motion for reconsideration or a proposed order in which you summarize the content of the meeting so that there is a written record of what was said in the file. 

 

Evidentiary Issues:  

There are two ways evidentiary issues become significant.  Either you tried to get an exhibit accepted and the court denied you, or the opposing side submitted an exhibit and it was accepted over your objections. 

 

In both circumstances, you have to take action if you want to preserve the issues for review by the Appellate Court. 

 

If the judge refuses to admit your evidence as a full exhibit, In order to preserve a claim to have it admitted, what you have to do first is object, and second you have to make an "offer of proof". 

Offer of Proof:

 

An offer of proof involves explaining what the excluded evidence is and what it would show if the trial court allowed it to be admitted. 

 

If you don't provide this offer of proof, the appellate court will not be able to understand what the evidence was and why the evidence  was important to the case. 

Get Your Evidence Marked For Identification: 

 

Furthermore, even if the excluded document does not get admitted as a full exhibit, you should make sure that the document is marked for identification so it will be included in the record and the Appellate Court can later determine if it should have been accepted as a full exhibit after all.

 

Likewise, if you are attempting to exclude your opponent's evidence, you should make an immediate objection to that evidence and state the exact grounds of your objection, i.e. "relevance", "hearsay", "misleading".

Get a Specific Ruling From the Judge: 

 

Make sure that you get a specific ruling from the judge in regard to the objections you raise.  Watch out for a situation where the judge says he won't admit the evidence now, but might admit it later.  In these circumstances, unless you make continued efforts to submit that evidence, it may end up being an issue that is considered waived.

Alternate Theories in Your Case:

 

Keep in mind that if you have any theories of your case, the time to raise those theories is immediately during the trial.  Appellate Courts only review old theories of a case, not new ones.

Objecting to the Memorandum of Decision:

 Furthermore, once the Memorandum of Decision comes out in your case, make sure you raise concerns about any omissions, inaccuracies, or ambiguities in the decision in a timely fashion, otherwise, again, if you don't raise it, you waive it. 

Assumptions in Appellate Court:

 

Keep in mind that the Appellate Court operates with the basic assumption that the trial court ruled correctly.  In order to overcome that assumption, you have to have a solid argument that is based upon the record.  If you have not created an adequate record, you will simply waste everyone's time and lose. 

 

Of course, most of us are self represented parties.  Most of the time we lose simply because the judicial system refuses to take us seriously.  However, at least if you take these very simple, straightforward steps to preserve the record for appeal, you won't make a fool of yourself and whatever small chance you have will be maximized.


RELATED ARTICLE:

http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2010/09/excuse-me-could-you-say-that-again.html

EXCUSE ME? COULD YOU SAY THAT AGAIN!

Have you ever been in the situation where you are in court and the gavel goes down, more figuratively than literally, and the Court says "Case Dismissed!" and you just lost and you are on your way out the door still trying to understand--what just happened there!?!?

The court has a remedy for that, by the way. Unfortunately, it doesn't really work that well for self-represented parties, but it is the law and it is supposed to work for self represented parties, even if it doesn't. You can always try it and see if you get a nice judge.

What you do is, when the judge makes a ruling that you find inexplicable, you have the option right then and there to ask the judge to explain the legal basis for his decision. Were you a lawyer, he would find it very hard to wiggle out of that request. Either the judge has to explain for the record or he has to look the answer up in his law books and explain the legal basis of his decision to you later in writing.

Your other option is to submit a Motion For Clarification which, again, is supposed elicit a response. In fact, there is a clerk at the courthouse who has the job of making sure that the judge receives that Motion For Clarification and responds to it.

In reality, as a self represented party, I've submitted these requests for an explanation in court and also I've submitted Motions For Clarification and the judge has simply refused to answer or just ignored them. I don't think that is legally correct, and in the long run I think the refusal to respond will be a problem for the judge, not for me.

The bottom line is, just by asking the question either in the court hearing or in a motion you put on record your objection to a particular legal proceeding and thus establish a basis for a later appeal should you choose to go there. Or you simply plant little seeds of doubt in the judge's mind which may later bear much good fruit in later proceedings.

So be sure you take advantage of this procedure when the times comes and a red flag comes up for you in your head saying, wait a minute, something is wrong here, something doesn't add up. Because the likelihood is, if you feel that way, there is probably a reason.

Let me know, has anyone out there asked a judge for an explanation or filed a motion for clarification? I'd love to hear about your experience!