[blindlaw] Is blindness ever consitter an issue in court

Parnell Diggs parnell at sccoast.net
Wed Jul 10 23:37:44 UTC 2013


Hello legal professionals,
The state probably doesn't have to do anything to accommodate the blind defense attorney. The defense attorney needs to ask a  cited person to describe the photos to him and determine whether the person depicted therein is indeed the defendant.

 At trial, I would suggest that the defense attorney asked the state to present the photos to the defense counsel table just as they would if the defense attorney were sighted. On many occasions, I have made decisions about whether to object to photos I could not see, and the court often has overruled my objections, just as it would with a sighted attorney. In the meantime, the defense attorney may want to come up with an explanation as to why the defendant is depicted in the photographs.

Parnell Diggs, Esq.
President
National Federation of the Blind
 of South Carolina
Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 10, 2013, at 7:12 PM, pattichang at att.net wrote:

> I am blind and have served in Illinois on a jury. There was pictorial evidence. There were also diagrams of the location. The judge asked and I think this is appropriate for most situations that both attorneys verbally describe what they were pointing at and reference verbally anything that related to the evidence. I would also note that most states require a witness to describe what is in the pictures in order to lay a proper foundation.
> 
> 
> Patti S. Gregory-Chang
> NFBI President
> NFB Scholarship Comm. Chair
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On Jul 10, 2013, at 6:05 PM, "RJ Sandefur" <joltingjacksandefur at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> John Smith is a blind defence aturney. He is defending Mike shafer on murder 1 charges. The state has photos of the defendant at the crime seen. What should the state do taking into consitteration the defence lawyer is blind and is unable to see the pictures? RJ
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