Christopher Schurr Trial - The Latest

We welcome back Professor Emeritus Lew Langham of Cooley Law School to discuss week 1 of the Christopher Schurr trial. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's shift to the Christopher Sure trial, which is underway
and moving, in my opinion, pretty quick. Let's bring an
expert in on that. This is West Michigan's Morning News,
Steve Kelly and Brett Bikita. I mean the prosecution has
rested and we may see the end of the defense
today too, Professor Emeritis at Cooley Law. Lou Langham back

(00:23):
on the liveline. Professor, thanks for doing this today.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm more than a welcome and happy to do this. Guy.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Talk to us a little bit about that perception maybe
from me, the pace of this trial. What do you
think the.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Pace is going real fast? The witnesses that were on yesterday,
the expert witnesses. That always slows things down a little
bit because there's a battle of the experts taking place.
Each side has their own experts, They battle each other,
they contradict each other on something and that's what took

(00:56):
most of the time yesterday. But other than that, this
trial is moving right along.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
So a question you brought up when you were with
us a couple of days ago is things just got underway,
and a big one that still remains. Will Christopher Sure
take the stand? Do we have any indications and why
would he and why wouldn't he?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, the reason I'll start with why he wouldn't take
the stand if that were to happen, it's because the
defense attorneys, the defense team would think that, Okay, the
prosecution has not proven their case beyond the reasonable doubt,
and we are relatively certain that your jury will not
convict him, so we aren't going to put him on

(01:36):
the witness stand. Or it's a close call, and the
defense thinks, okay, we need to have Christopher Schuer on
the witness stand. He needs to tell his side of
the story. We don't have anything to hide. Because when
you have cases that involving things as searches like assault
and battery type cases, domestic cases in this particular type

(01:58):
case where there's an assault of nature involved, it's always
under most circumstances, you will hear from the other party
that's charged. What do you because the jury's looking to
hear their story.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
And speaking of that, what do you make of what
you're hearing as far as in the courtroom with talking
about tasers and the use of them and also now
getting into you know, a one on one battle. Exhaustion
was a part of it. And the safety of everyone involved.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Okay, the exhaustion part is basically indicating when the defense
brings that up, they're saying that Christopher Sure police officer,
Christopher Sure did everything he could do to stop Patrick
Gooya from fighting and resisting, and he got to the
point where he was totally exhausted. Patrick Goola had his taser,

(02:53):
he had Christopher Schure had his weapon, and he felt
that he needed to pull that weapon out and fire. Now,
this the discussions about the taser are very important. This
is what the trial is boiling down to with the tasers,
because Christopher Sure's main defense is I was concerned that
he was going to turn, twist and stick that taser

(03:18):
into my skin, causing me to be partially electrocuted, paralyzed
to a point for five to ten seconds where I
could not respond. He would take my gun and maybe
shoot me. I couldn't take that chance. I had to
shoot him.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
So we move. If we get to the defense resting today,
closing arguments, how persuasive are those? Generally in trials.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
They're very persuasive. It's attack. It's one of those things
where you as the attorney prosecution, defense, you have to
figure out Okay, how do I wrap this entire trial
up that's occurred over five, six, seven days. How do
I I wrap it up in an hour hitting all
the high points I want to hit so the jury

(04:07):
sees my side of the case and understand that my
clients to be found not guilty and on the other side,
prosecution side to be found guilty. So you have to
tie this whole case up within about an hour. There's
no deadline to it or timeframe to it, but you
need to hit on the key elements throughout the trial

(04:28):
to remind the jury what happened day one, day two,
day three, because you can't expect the jury to remember
everything that happened day one, day two, or the important
pertinent testimony as you saw it.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
We'll get to that next week. Possibly we'll also then
talk about the dynamic of the jury that both sides
helped to pick. Next week we'll bring him back. Professor
Emeritis at Cooler Law, lou Langham, great stuff. Thanks for
your time today.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
You're more than welcome. Thank you