Prosecution Opening Statement - Mock Trial?

Question

I would like to get some general tips please.

Answer 1

I am assuming that this is a criminal trial.

First tip is the actual requirement for an opening statement -- you must include enough facts to support a guilty verdict.

Second tip is that the goal of an opening statement is to tell the story of the crime.

Third tip is that, in most trials, the evidence will by necessity be a little disjointed due to the fact that witnesses overlap and some witnesses are needed for foundation. As such, the opening statement should put a coherent organization on the case. Many people prefer a chronolgical organization moving from prior to the crime through the crime and then the investigation.

Fourth, every story needs a hero and a villain. Without being overly dramatic, you need to include enough details to make the victim sympathetic to the jury (or for a "victim-less" crime to emphasize the rightness of the police actions) and to emphasize the wrongness of the crime.

Fifth, you should leave some room for the jury to make connections later. You don't necessarily want to emphasize your smoking gun in opening (unless that is the only way that you make a submissible case).

Sixth, you should never promise anything in opening that you can't deliver. If you aren't sure that the co-defendant is going to stick with their confession on the stand, you shouldn't mention something that only he says happened. At the close of the case, you are going to want to be able to say here is what I told you we would be able to prove at the start of the trial and we proved it. Regardless of which side you are on in a case, you do not want the other side to be saying at the end that you did not deliver on what you promised in opening.

Seventh, the final key point is repetition. The big points in opening statement should be the big points that you are going to try to emphasize during the presentation of evidence and that you are going to return to in argument at the end.

In short, the goal of opening statement (besides fulfilling the legal requirement of informing the defense of what you intend to prove) is to demonstrate that you are the trustworthy guide that will help the jurors understand what is happening in this case. If you achieve this in opening statement and do not break their trust during the presentation of evidence, you will be the person that they listen to in closing to help them figure out the truth.