Research

Still going over my two thousand pages of research for the novel. Thought I would share some of the research with you today, it is a way that I can share the project with you without giving away the story. I might not even use some of the research in the book. Of course some of it may not apply today as it is outdated but it is at the same time as the story takes place.

On the old Authors/Crime forum on CompuServe they used to have an expert of the week. One week they had a well-known litigation attorney, Chris Fisanick, as an expert. One of the forum hosts asked him if he had ever had a witness on the witness stand surprise him and his answer was amazing.

"The question should be have I ever had a witness take the stand and not say something that completely surprised me." The reasons are many:

1. Witnesses forget because they are human.

2. Witnesses get scared and can't testify.

3. Witnesses deliberately try to screw you over, i.e., snitches who are ratting out former compatriots.

4. Witnesses have been threatened or paid off.

5. Witnesses are small children or old and just can't remember.

6. Witnesses are just stupid - all the preping in the world won't help.

Sometimes you can overcome this because most jurisdictions allow you to impeach your own witnesses. You can often get their prior statements in evidence and then try to explain to the jury why they didn't testify the same way in open court. The mark of a good trial attorney is how well they handle this type of situation."

Now on to a different subject, from a Washington Post article that I read in November of 1988.

National stats on how often police are assaulted:

YEAR......INCIDENTS..........GUNS.......KNIVES.......OTHER.

1988..........58,916................... 2,760.........1,368...........5,579.
1989.........62,172......................3,154.........1,379...........5,778.
1990........72,270......................3,665.........1,650..........7,436.
1991........62,852......................3,532..........1,493..........7,014.
1992.......81,252.......................4,455..........1,574.......... 7,551.

21 officers killed by knives in the previous ten years, 14,139 wounded.

May this be a great day for all of you!