Don't attempt to dissect individual cases in open court.

• Jurisdiction: United States

Section 118. Don't attempt to dissect individual cases in open court.—Mr. Justice Cardozo once wrote: "There is, of course, no formula that will fit all situations in appellate courts or elsewhere. If, however, I had to prepare a list of 'Don'ts' for the guidance of the novice, I think I would say that only in the rarest instances is it wise to take up one decision after another for the purpose of dissection. Such autopsies have their value at times, but they are wearisome and gruesome scenes."¹¹

You will be well advised, therefore, to state your cases simply as establishing broad propositions, and to leave all the details of the particular decision to your briefs. Unless you do just that, the main thread of your argument will become lost.

Here are two examples of how a case can be stated in court; the question is whether post-mortem declarations are admissible in evidence.¹²

(A)

Post-mortem declarations have been held to be utterly inadmissible for any purpose, ever since Chief Justice Marshall's justly celebrated opinion in Schmaltz against the Chosen Freeholders in the 13th of Wheaton.¹³ Their inadmissibility has never been questioned since the time of that decision, which has stood as a landmark of the law of evidence, and which has been followed and affirmed and reaffirmed in a whole stack of cases, all...