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NOTE: As a thank you for reading this blog post, we are providing you with a free excerpt from Dan Castro’s book CRITICAL CHOICES THAT CHANGE LIVES.
A standard motion filed in every jury trial is called a Motion In Limine. A Motion In Limine is a motion asking the court not to allow the other lawyer to talk about or introduce certain testimony and exhibits that could possibly kill the client’s case. But wait! I thought the purpose of a jury trial was to let the jurors see all of the evidence so they can decide who’s right. That is the ideal, but it is not the reality. The reality is that lawyers try to keep out all kinds of evidence that you are not aware of. The goal is to get you to focus only on their evidence and completely ignore the other side’s evidence. If they can control what you focus on, they can control what you believe.
Of course, an actual trial is much more complicated than this, and many factors, such as how believable a witness is, contribute to who wins. But, this is the basic strategy that all trial lawyers use. Why? Because trial lawyers understand The Second Law of Critical Focus. What you focus on determines what you believe.
In July 2002, five-year old Samantha Runnion was kidnapped from outside her apartment complex in Southern California while she was playing with a friend. The next day, her naked body was found along a nearby highway. She had been raped and then asphyxiated. The man who committed this crime was Alejandro Avila. This horrendous murder could have been prevented if Avila had been convicted of sexual assault two years earlier.
Two years previous, Avila had been accused of child molestation. Two nine-year old girls each testified in graphic detail about the abuse they said Avila had inflicted on them. According to the Los Angeles Times, one of the little girls said, “When my mom went to work, he would take me into the room and he would do those things to me.” She described how he would take off her clothes and his clothes. “Then he would start touching me and then making his private part touch mine,” she said.
The defendant’s argument was that Avila’s ex-girlfriend had encouraged the girls to make up those stories. The defense attorney repeated this theme over and over, day in and day out, throughout the trial. This is a classic strategy used by both trial lawyers and professional marketers and advertisers. It is called repetition – and it’s very powerful. That’s why when a company wants to launch a new product, you suddenly start seeing the product everywhere – on TV, in magazines, in newspapers, on billboards. You even hear about in on the radio. They are controlling your focus without your consent. And it works. The evidence shows that the more you see and hear about a product, the more you will tend to believe it is a product worth buying. It works the same way in jury trials, and the best trial lawyers are those who do it well. Do you still think you are always in control of what you believe?
Despite the two girls’ detailed and graphic testimony, the defense attorney used the power of repetition to convince the jury that the girls just could not be believed – and he succeeded. Trial lawyers control what jurors believe by controlling what they focus on. In jury trials and in life, the Second Law of Critical Focus is always at work whether we realize it or not. What we focus on determines what we believe.
Did you notice the Second, Third and Fourth Laws of Critical Focus at work in the last chapter in the story of the USS Vincennes and the story of Peter Godwin in Zimbabwe? Because the captain of the USS Vincennes was focusing on the recent Iranian attack on his ship, he believed there would be more attacks. Therefore, when he saw an Iranian aircraft, he expected it to attack. He saw what he was expecting to see. He saw a peaceful civilian aircraft as a hostile military aircraft. Similarly, because Peter Godwin was focusing on the threat to his life, he believed that all soldiers were looking for him. Therefore, when he saw a soldier on the road, he expected him to be a threat. He too saw what he was expecting to see.
The decision of the captain of the USS Vincennes cost hundreds of civilian lives. The decision of Peter Godwin saved hundreds of civilian lives. What made the difference? The difference was that Peter Godwin looked for and focused on new information that changed his beliefs. Once his beliefs changed, his expectations changed. This is how heroes operate. They take control of what they are focusing on. If we can control what we focus on, we can control what we believe. If we can control what we believe, we can control what we expect in any given situation.
What we’re expecting in any given situation is critically important because it determines what actions we are likely to take. In their book, Inattentional Blindness, Psychologists Arien Mack and Irvin Rock have concluded that “When we are intently awaiting something, we often see and hear things that are not there.” The brilliant psychologist William James puts it this way:
When waiting for the distant clock to strike, our mind is so filled with its image that at every moment we think we hear the longed for or dreaded sound. So of an awaited footstep. Every stir in the wood is for the hunter his game; for the fugitive, his pursuers.
If you think about it for a minute, you may be able to think of times when you saw or heard things that weren’t there – solely because you were anticipating them. Pychologists have been keenly aware of this phenomenon for many years - we tend to see what we’re expecting to see. However, it is my position that the Fourth Law of Critical Focus applies to all of life, not just to things we can see with our physical eyes. As human beings, we tend to see life, not as it is, but as we are expecting it to be.
THANK YOU FOR READING THIS EXCERPT!
Remember, if you are buying or selling real estate in Austin, please call Rose Castro at EXIT: Options Realty.
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