PAUL A. KSICINSKI LAW
IF THERE IS NO STRUGGLE, THERE IS NO PROGRESS
38 South Main Street, #1056
Oconomowoc, WI 53066
Phone: 414-404-3393
Web: paulksicinskilaw.com
Email: [email protected]
Defense attorneys are intimately familiar with rocks and hard places. This so-called “predicament” is really just the omnipresent, on-going cost-benefit calculation counsel must perform as a matter of course throughout trial. As the prosecution presents its case, defense counsel must carefully consider, in real time, every piece of evidence as it comes in throughout the entirety of the proceeding. Upon hearing each piece of information, often for the first time, he must assess its accuracy against the information in his possession, weigh its likely impact on the jury, consider how it might strengthen or weaken his theory of defense, determine its effect on evidence yet to be introduced, and analyze its compliance with evidentiary rules. And he must do all of that in the heartbeat that passes between when he hears the evidence and he rises to announce his objection. This he must do upon pain of forfeiting the claimed error. State v. Coffee, 2020 WI 1 ¶56 DANIEL KELLY, J. (concurring).