SANTA BARBARA SUPERIOR COURT
DEPARTMENT SIX
JUDGE DENISE de BELLEFEUILLE

RULES

It is our goal to provide you and your clients with a formal, fair, and comfortable courtroom environment in which to try your lawsuit. There are certain expectations we have of your courtroom conduct. In giving you this information, we intend that you will act in accordance with our expectations and that together we will accomplish the goal of providing you and your clients a positive trial experience, win, lose, or draw.

First, we wish to draw your attention to the Santa Barbara Superior Court local rules. You are expected to be familiar with the rules, including the Rules of Civility, adopted by the court prior to consolidation in 1998. The Rules of Civility are available on-line for your reading pleasure.

The judge expects you to act as a polite, well prepared problem solver. Your attitude towards your opponent, towards the jury, and to court staff must at all time be respectful. In the courtroom formal titles shall be used at all times for all parties and people, including the judge’s staff. NO FIRST NAMES IN THE COURTROOM AT ANY TIME, INCLUDING BREAKS.

At the current time, the judge’s staff includes the following key people:

CLERK OF THE COURT:
Ms Kristi Temple, Courtroom phone: (805) 882-4578

The clerk is responsible for collecting jury fees, swearing witnesses, making minute orders for all the court’s activities during trial, marking and preserving evidence.

IF YOU HAVE REQUESTED THE JURY YOU MOST POST THE JURY FEES EACH MORNING BEFORE WE BEGIN COURT PROCEEDINGS. Failure to do so may result in a delay in the trial and/or the imposition of sanctions.

The clerk appreciates the opportunity to pre-mark exhibits, particularly in a case with many documents. You are to meet and confer with your opponent at the earliest opportunity to agree on exhibits and have them pre-marked by the clerk.

BAILIFF:
Deputy Roger Brenner, Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Office

Deputy Brenner provides security for all of us and is charged with the duty of watching over the jury when they are deliberating on the case. If the witnesses are ordered excluded from the courtroom, he will check everyone who comes into the courtroom to make sure they abide by the order. He will not tolerate rude, noisy or boisterous conduct, from whatever source.

COURT REPORTER:
Ms. Sandra Flynn, telephone number (805) 882-4546

Please instruct your witnesses to not answer any question until the lawyer asking the question has finished articulating it and the judge has had an opportunity to rule on any objection made to the question. The worst thing from a court reporter’s point of view is for two or more people to talk over one another. Rapid speech is also problematic.

JUDGE’S SECRETARY:
Pamela Hiromerides, telephone number (805) 882-4590 or Marilyn Metzner, telephone number (805) 882-4570

Either Ms. Hiromerides or Ms. Metzner is the person to call prior to trial to get a sense of the judge’s calendar and whether the court can honor your initial trial call. She will NOT tell you whether you are definitely going or not going to trial. She will merely be able to tell you whether the court is still engaged in finishing another trial (so that your chances of starting on the first day are minimal). You are welcome to call her for such information, but remember, IT IS THE JUDGE WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL CALENDARING AND TRYING OF CASES, AND THAT THE JUDGE MAKES NO FINAL DECISIONS ABOUT THE PRIORITY OF TRYING CASES UNTIL THE ACTUAL TRIAL CALL.

Trial days for this department are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Starting March 1, 2004, Thursday afternoons are also available from1: 30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. It is Judge de Bellefeuille’s preference to reserve Fridays for short cause trials and conduct jury trials Monday through Wednesday (and possibly Thursday afternoons), though she is flexible on this time frame. She has found the Monday through Wednesday schedule to be very helpful to jurors and lawyers alike. It also gives her the opportunity to keep current on family law trials. Court begins PROMPTLY at 9:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Any matters that need to be handled out of the presence of the jury will be held before 9:00, after 4:30 or close to the normal break times to avoid inconveniencing the jury.

If the case was set for trial call on a Friday morning at 9 a.m. the court will hear motions in limine that morning, with jury selection the following Monday. Under the new system starting March, 1, 2004, trial calls for the three general civil departments is to be at 11:30 a.m. on that department’s law and motion day. Thursday is the law and motion day for Department Six. Thus, if you have a Thursday trial call, you can anticipate doing motions in limine Thursday afternoon.

Jury fees are to be posted 25 days prior to trial. Court reporter fees and daily juror fees are to be paid to the court clerk on a daily basis prior to the start of the day’s proceedings.

Motions in limine should be submitted in writing, although the court may entertain oral motions as well. A complete list of jury instructions must be provided to the court at the trial call, and counsel shall lodge their requests for general or special verdict before the commencement of trial.

Each side must also submit a complete list of witnesses, and an estimate of time for that witness’ testimony. The court will formulate the estimate of time for the entire trial based on the information submitted by the attorneys, and counsel shall be bound by their estimates. You are expected to have your witnesses available and ready to testify during our hours of operation. To avoid delays it is desirable to have more than one witness at the courthouse. FAILURE TO HAVE YOUR WITNESSES AVAILABLE MAY RESULT IN YOUR CASE BEING RESTED! If there is an unavoidable gap between witnesses, the judge will require witnesses to be taken out of order. This means that if the opponent has someone available, that witness will take the stand.

The judge and lawyers will meet towards the end of the evidence to finalize jury instructions. Counsel are expected to be readily available by telephone for jury questions that may arise during jury deliberations.

Although the Santa Barbara Superior Court has not published an official dress code, in keeping with the dignity and serious nature of court proceedings, proper attire is required in the courtroom. No participant in a case may appear in a tank top, tube-top, cut-offs, shorts, or any other inappropriate clothing. The court does not wish to see the belly buttons or cleavage of any witness. Chewing gum or tobacco is also forbidden. Attorneys are responsible for ensuring that clients and witnesses comply with this rule.

The standing order of the court is to exclude witnesses from the trial before opening statements. The attorneys are expected to monitor this order. Likewise, counsel will advise their witnesses not to discuss their testimony with any other witness after the witness testifies. Counsel shall further advise parties and witnesses that nodding, grimaces, unnecessary gestures, etc. are not tolerated: and of course, counsel are to refrain from the same.

On a related topic, speaking objections are not permitted. When an attorney has an objection, he or she must state it briefly and succinctly, in one or two words. Examples of appropriate objections include: “objection, hearsay”; “objection, vague”; “objection, calls for a narrative”. An example of an impermissible objection would be “objection, my opponent is unfairly trying to throw a red herring into the proceedings by asking a question that she knows is loaded.” Not only do these objections take up a great deal of space and time, they are impossible for the court to address within the rules of evidence, are unprofessional, and may constitute a personal attack on opposing counsel, which the court will not permit under any circumstance.

Permission to approach witnesses must be requested from the court before an attorney may walk up to the witness stand. Generally permission need only be requested once per witness. All exhibits you intend to show to a witness MUST BE MARKED AS AN EXHIBIT PRIOR to showing it to that witness. You must also have the witness authenticate the document for the record as the first act of discussion of that item of evidence. Thus, the proper procedure is as follows: Attorney: “Your honor, may I approach the witness?” Assuming that permission to approach is granted, the next question would be: Attorney: “I am showing you exhibit one marked for identification. What is this? And/Or “How do you recognize it?” Or “Did you prepare this?” In other words, authentification is simply the process of revealing for the record what an item of evidence purports to be. You must authenticate evidence before making a motion to have it admitted into evidence, and you may not publish any evidence to the jury (by use of the Elmo or by passing it through the jury box) until it is entered into evidence. Attorneys
are encouraged to enter into stipulations to admit exhibits. Such stipulations must be arranged outside the presence of the jury.

The court disdains sidebars and will only reluctantly participate in them. Jurors hate them. They feel that the attorneys and judge are unjustifiably excluding information from them. Thus, the court encourages the attorneys to meet with the judge before 9 a.m. (8:45 a.m. is always good) or after 4:30 p.m. to work out any logistical problems and minimize surprises that would lead to a request for a sidebar.

One last note. Never, I repeat never, argue with the judge after she has made an evidentiary ruling. It is disrespectful and outside the boundaries of fair advocacy. On a more practical level, it is a fight you can’t win. If you insist on arguing with the judge, prepare to be embarrassed in front of the jury. Likewise, remove from your vocabulary the antiquated phrase “with all due respect, your honor.” It connotes little if no respect at all. If you insist on a preface to any comment you might have for the judge, try “respectfully”. It may be subversive, but not overt.

*Wednesday is apple strudel day. When we are in session in jury trial, the jury and lawyers are treated to sweets from Anderson’s Danish Bakery, courtesy of Judge de Bellefeuille.

 
AVAILABLE COURTROOM EQUIPMENT

The courtroom is equipped with an ELMO, VCR, and can accommodate laptop computers and power point presentations. You may arrange to visit the courtroom before trial to be instructed in the proper use of our equipment.

 
JURY SELECTION

The judge expects the parties to meet and confer and create a brief joint statement of the case, which is to be read by the judge to the jury panel. It should be a neutral statement of what the issues are in the case for the jury to decide. The judge will also ask counsel to submit written questions that the judge can ask each juror. These should be universally applicable questions. The fact that the judge assumes the duty of asking such questions does not limit your right to fully voir dire the panel of potential jurors. It has simply been our experience that when the judge asks the questions, the lawyers have an opportunity to sit back and listen to the answers, and to then make an intelligent decision as to whether follow-up questions are necessary. Please do not repeat the same question already asked of a juror by the judge.

We will employ the “six pack”. This means that 12 prospective jurors will be seated in the jury box. An additional group of six people is placed in the front row of the gallery, closest to the jury box. The judge and then the lawyers question all 18 people. When you have finished your questioning of the entire group, inform the judge whether you “pass for cause” or reserve challenges for cause. If you have reserved challenges for cause we will take them up outside the presence of the jury as soon as both sides have completed their questioning of the panel.

In the typical civil action with only two parties, each side has 6 peremptory challenges. With the six-pack, peremptory challenges are issued against only people seated in the jury box. When such a person is excused, the seat left vacant is filled by the first person of the six pack. Thus it goes until we have run through the six-pack. At the same time, depending on how close the parties feel they are to selecting a jury, the judge will seat 7 additional people, or call up one person at a time.