[blindlaw] Is blindness ever consitter an issue in court

[Susan Kelly]

As an attorney who does appeals and who has been on both sides of the vision situation, the verbal description is the best way to go.  It benefits everyone, sighted or not, and at least here in Arizona, photographs and other exhibits (except in homicide cases) generally are NOT transmitted to the Court of Appeals as part of the record on appeal.  Having a detailed description of each photo in the transcripts of the proceeding is the surest way of making a record of the full proceeding for the appellate court.

-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of pattichang at att.net
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2013 4:12 PM
To: Blind Law Mailing List
Cc: NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Is blindness ever consitter an issue in court

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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