What is Pre-Trial Preparation?
A trial is a formal meeting in a law court when all of the facts of a case are heard and the judge or jury determines whether a defendant is guilty or not. A pre-trial preparation is a procedure held by a judge or an independent body prior to a trial to minimise problems of law and fact and settle certain issues between the parties in order to expedite justice and save expenses during the trial. Among the top concerns are acquiring information about the client, client interviews, and police station visits. Apart from the preparation that an attorney must undertake prior to a trial, it is thought to be beneficial even for the expert witnesses to be aware of the legal issues involved in the case prior to the trial. Attorneys help expert witnesses in this regard to prepare them before the trial.
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Forensic
Portfolio
A forensic psychologist can take with him into court any notes or books relevant to his evidence with which to refresh his memory. Though not every detail, the court does expect the expert to be reasonably au fait with the general details of the case and the major relevant facts, such as the date of the offense, or accident, the dates on which the client was seen for forensic purposes, and where, and so on. A forensic psychologist, when called to the witness box to give evidence, may take with him any document to refresh his memory, even if the document itself is inadmissible as evidence, provided that:
(1) it was written within his own knowledge and he believes it to be a correct representation of the facts contained therein, or
(2) that it was written himself contemporaneously with or soon after the events recorded (a logbook inspected by a superior, one week after the relevant entry, has been accepted for this purpose (Anderson and Wheeley (1852)).
The expert witness should prepare a portfolio containing all the information he is likely to need to take into the witness box with him. He may need certain original documents, such as the hospital case notes, or a casebook, or a treatment file belonging to the psychology department or community clinic. Since 1824, once taken into court, all documents become available to the other side, so the expert should be very circumspect as to what accompanies him into the box.
The basic question should be: ''Do I want the cross-examining counsel to see this data in this form?" More often than not, the answer will be 'no', and this suggests that the forensic portfolio should contain all the data (because the witness will swear or affirm that he intends to tell inter alia the whole truth) which has been put in a form which will be most effective for the expert and produce the least damage to the client if used by the opposition. The documents should include one sheet bearing all the relevant dates down one side in chronological order, with the relevant occurrence in brief by the side. The sheet, like all the others, should be in a large clear script or typed in capitals so that easy reference can be made to the data even when flustered. Note that being chronological, some dates will have been inserted before the file on the client was actually raised by the psychologist.
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