November 13, 2007
Calendar Listings
I just updated the calendar on my website. It includes two big national radio interviews coming up, one with Jim Bohannon (with an estimated audience of about three million) on November 27, and the other with Dennis Miller on December 5. There's also a local event in Lexington, MA for anyone who wants to buy some books and get them signed in one easy shot. (The event also featues seven other local authors, and the chance to get whatever books you buy giftwrapped.)All the money from purchases goes to the Lexington Historical Society.
Posted by rickbeyer at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)
November 05, 2007
Somerville Library
I will be discussing my new book, The Greatest Presidential Stories Never Told, Tuesday November 6th at 7:00 PM at the Somerville Public Libraryin Somerville, MA. Please join us--it should be fun!
Posted by rickbeyer at 02:01 PM | Comments (0)
September 23, 2007
Aboard the Godspeed
Recently, I spent a week in another world: sailing as a volunteer crewman aboard Godpseed.
The ship is a replica of one of three vessels that sailed from England to Jamestown in 1607, where they founded the the first permanent British colony in North America. I produced a documentary on the construction of the ship, Godspeed to Jamestown, that aired in 2005. That’s how I got a chance to serve on the ship's crew for the first leg of a two week journey to several ports in the Chesapeake Bay, where the ship was open to the public, this being the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown.
Captain Eric Speth and the three mates all work full time for the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. Everybody else was a volunteer. The crew ranged from 26 to 78, and there were a couple of guys in their late 60’s who went aloft every day to unfurl and furl the sails. The picture at right shows a 68 year old grandfather, Tony Flores, scampering up the lines to unfurl the sails. What an inspiration!!
Most of the crew slept in the main cabin. I had an upper bunk with a good 18” of clearance between my nose and the deck above! Still, our living conditions were 100 times better than those of the folks who crossed the Atlantic on the original ship. Each bunk had a fan and an electric light. We had 13 people sleeping aboard instead of 52 on the original journey. And we had a great cook (Noel, a retired insurance broker) who made each meal a pleasure.
It was an amazing journey with a tremendous bunch of folks, and I will deal with some of the aspects of it in further posts.
Posted by rickbeyer at 09:26 PM | Comments (0)
May 29, 2006
Sunday in New York
Another appearance on Fox and Friends…a bit more low key than the last one. I hung out in the green room before the segment, and had a chance to chat with the hosts before we went on. One of them was Alisyn Camerota, who did a story about my efforts on the 911 Email project back in 2001, and Julian Philips, who interviewed me last time I was on Fox and Friends. So it felt pretty relaxing. It was a bit strange being interviewed by three people—I didn’t know who to look at!! Media critic Marilyn Rea Beyer said it went well, though, so that’s all that counts.
One of the hosts asked about my Ghost Army button and I gave them a pitch on the film, directing them to check the website.
After leaving the studio, I got to see some of the Spiderman 3 filming on 6th Avenue. (Five blocks of 6th Avenue, 7th Avenue and Broadway were closed to traffic over the weekend for the filming.) This is a not-so-great picture picture from my cellphone.
Just before I took this shot, Spiderman and a woman (stunt people I assume) were suspended from the crane about 8 stories up. In about the blink of an eye they slid them down a cable to the ground. It’s cool to see that they still go out and film sequences like this, that it isn’t all blue screen and animation.
The area around the building was all dressed as if there had been an explosion or some kind of building collapse. The picture below, which someone else took, captures it pretty well.
Now I can't wait to see the movie!
Posted by rickbeyer at 07:38 PM | Comments (0)
April 22, 2006
KSFO Interview
I did an interview on Friday morning with KSFO Radio, a popular AM talk station in San Francisco. The interview was with Lee Rodgers, who does their morning show. We had a great time and they invited me back for Memorial Day.
The interview really spiked the Amazon ratings for a day or so. I’ve never seen a local market interview have that big an effect on Amazon sales.
The interview came about because I contacted Lee after not having talked to him for more than 25 years, and he was nice enough to have his producer me on the show. In the late 70’s I worked at a radio station in Chicago (WIND) where Lee hosted a mid-day talk show.
I particularly recall an incident in which he neatly tweaked my athletic vanity. I was about 23 at the time, rowing crew, running, biking, ski-racing, and pretty impressed with myself. We were in the lunchroom one morning, and I was going on to Lee about all the training I was doing. He professed to be very impressed. “Your leg muscles must be really developed,” he said, reaching down to feel my calf. “Wow, that’s amazing. I’ve done some working out too, feel mine.”
I reached down to feel his calf muscle. What I didn’t know is that Lee had a prosthetic leg, the result of a lumbering accident when he was a teenager. It was a total shock, and I pulled my hand away as he laughed. I’m sure the look on my face was priceless. I try to call up the memory any time my hubris starts to run away with me.
Posted by rickbeyer at 11:54 AM | Comments (0)
April 18, 2006
Where's Rick
I will be appearing on the program "My TV PRime" on WZMY-TV tonight,sometime between 8:30 and 9, talking about Paul Revere/Patriots Day/etc. The station is Channel 18 on most Boston area cable systems.
Posted by rickbeyer at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)
April 17, 2006
Don't fire unless fired upon!
I watched the re-enactment of the Battle of Lexington this morning from the Buckman Tavern. I was in the Tap room when the minuteman ran out of the house. I chatted with “Paul Revere” right until he helped carry John Hancock’s trunk across the Lexington Green to safety. Then it was up to the attic, where we had a great view of the battle. I’m giving tours at the Tavern today from 10-2.
Posted by rickbeyer at 08:01 AM | Comments (0)
April 16, 2006
History's Champion
Chris Bergeron of The Metro West Daily News profiled me in the paper's Arts section this morning. The article refers to me, among other things, as "slim," so I feel really good about it.
Here's a link to the online version:
Posted by rickbeyer at 08:55 AM | Comments (0)
April 09, 2006
Hear the Commonwealth Journal Interivew
I've posted a copy of the Commonwealth Journal radio interview that aired today on my media page.
Posted by rickbeyer at 09:42 PM | Comments (1)
December 19, 2005
Big New York Media Day
The couple was clearly drunk. Not obnoxiously so, but enough to make their voices far louder than normal. It was 1:30 AM and they had woken me from a sound sleep, their conversation in the corridor carrying quite clearly into my room at the Omni Berkshire. They were locked out and awaiting assistance. By the time they got it I was wide-awake, and I never really got back to sleep.
Just a little less than four hours later, I was dressed in my best interview clothes and walking out the door of the hotel, stepping out from under the awning into the pouring rain. The time was 6:20 AM. Beth Mellow from HarperCollins and I were on our way to the day’s first interview, and in fact, the big fish of the last 8 weeks—a national TV interview on “Fox and Friends,” the popular morning show on Fox News Channel.
The walk from the hotel to the Fox studios on 6th Avenue was a short one, and with a borrowed umbrella from the hotel offering suitable protection from the elements, we were there in a few minutes. After a small hang-up at security, a producer named Tiffany ushered us into the green room. “This is Rick at 6:50” announced Tiffany, and Claudia, the make-up artist, said “Hello Rick at 6:50,” and I was into make-up.
Ten minutes later, just as Claudia was finishing up, Tiffany came back to escort us into the studio. All of a sudden time started speeding up like crazy. A soundman was putting a wireless mic on my lapel, and I heard someone saying: “Rick Beyer…is he here with us?” A floor director was calling out “30 seconds” as I was being escorted to the set. I barely had time to shake hands with hosts Julian Philips and Andy Napolitano (who turns out to be a law school classmate of Jerry Fritz) before Andy was reading the intro and we were into the segment.
The interview seemed to go by in a flash. Suddenly we were done, and I was being escorted out. To come into the building we had to go through security in the main lobby, but there is a second door by the studio, and about 30 seconds after I got off the air we were standing out on 6th Avenue in the rain! Hard to believe that in the three or four minutes between the green room and the street, the conversation I had in that small studio was beamed across the country and seen by hundreds of thousands of people! (And you could see the impact by watching the book shoot up on the Amazon rankings…hitting a high of 161.)
Later in the morning, a Mercdes limo driven by a jovial, white haired Lithuanian named Constantine took us to Port Washington, where I was to speak at the library. When we arrived, it turned out that the library was expecting me to talk about the first book, not the new one we were promoting. I, of course, was prepared to talk about the new book—but they were quite insistent that the talk be about the first book, since that is what they had promoted, and that was the book they were going to sell afterwards. After a momentary attack of fear and panic, I headed off a quiet corner where I took out a pad of yellow paper and fashioned a talk that focused on the old book while mentioning the new. I finished my notes with about ten minutes to spare.
The talk went amazingly well. Everything seemed to flow; the audience of fifty or so participated enthusiastically, laughed at my jokes, and bought plenty of books afterwards. It was hard to imagine a talk going better. Maybe it was the shot of adrenaline that the panic gave me.
The audience included my uncle, Ed Smith of Massapequa; my book editor, Mauro Dipreta, from Harper Collins, and a veteran of the Ghost Army, Tom Roche. Another audience member made a sketch of me that you can see here.
After I signed all the books they sold, it was back to town for one more interview at ABC News Now, a cable/online offshoot of ABC.(Once again we were met at the door by a producer named Tiffany--it was Tiffany kind of day!) Then I hit a few Barnes and Noble bookstores to sign books before heading back up to Boston by train. A long and profitable day!
Posted by rickbeyer at 02:45 PM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2005
Fox and Friends
My appearanceon "Fox and Friends" on the Fox News Channel will be at 6:50 tomorrow morning (Friday December 16th.) A bit earlier than I thought...but quite good.
Posted by rickbeyer at 08:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 05, 2005
Newton Free Library
A belated note that I amspeaking at the Newton Free Library in Newton Mass Wednesday December 6th at 7:30 PM (617) 796-1360
Posted by rickbeyer at 09:00 PM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2005
Media Adventures
A busy week of media done. 20 interviews by my count, 17 radio and 3 TV. (Thanks to publicity mavens Beth Mellow and Lisa Sweet for making it happen.) One of the television interviews was with CNN Headline News. It was set up at the last minute on Thursday afternoon, and I did it on Friday morning, Veteran’s Day. It’s really weird to sit alone in a chilly little room staring down the barrel of a camera while chatting with a disembodied voice in your ear. (And how many ears, I wonder, has that earpiece been in? To be fair, they did have tiny disinfectant wipes, as well as plenty of spare earpieces for those more fastidious than I.) It is tough to be natural and relaxed in that situation, but it came off reasonably well.
By Friday early afternoon I had done 5 interviews, and was thinking that a nap sounded really good, when I got a call from WZMY, a television station in New Hampshire that I had been on earlier in the week. A guest had cancelled on their 9 PM talk show “My TV Prime, and since it was Veteran’s Day, they were wondering if I could come on again. The twist was that this time they hoped I could talk about the Ghost Army project, which I had mentioned (of-camera) on my previous visit.
Ghost Army is still in the super preliminary stages, but this seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. So the nap went by the boards, and Editor Eric Handley and I did some high-speed under-deadline cutting to come up with a two minute trailer we could show that night. I jumped in my car with the piece at 7:30, and made it up to Derry NH in plenty of time to do the show, which was hosted by Arnie Arnesen. Everybody really seemed to like the tape we showed, and hopefully that will help us generate some buzz. I talked to Martha Gavin afterwards, (She's the one who turned us on to this story, her Uncle John Jarvie is one of the veterans) and she was VERY excited to see the publicity the story got. Afterwards I had to hightail it back to Boston to get to WBZ by midnight for the last appointment of the day, an hour with Jordan Rich on BZ radio.
I had a similar sort of “call back” this afternoon. I did a phone interview with Norman Mark, a radio host on KNWZ Radio in Palm Springs California from 1:30 to 2. I thought I would have a chance to take a nap afterwards, but they called back at 2:15—they’re guest for the next hour had cancelled, could I come back on. So I ended up talking with him for another 45 minutes. It’s all been great, but man, am I wiped.
Posted by rickbeyer at 09:41 AM | Comments (0)
November 10, 2005
Headline News
Just got word from Beth Mellow, my publicity manager at Harper Collins, that I am booked to be on CNN Headline News Friday Morning (Veteran's Day) at 10:20 AM ET. National TV--very exciting!
Posted by rickbeyer at 06:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Image of the Week: My TV
I appeared on not one but two interview shows last night on WZMY-TV in Derry New Hampshire. At 7:30 I was interviewed briefly by Eric Schiener on the program "My TV Now." (See it here) Then after a quicknap (sprawled out on a couchin their conference room) I did a longer interview with Mike Deblasi, on a program called "My TV Prime."
WZMY-TV is a new station, taking over from the old WNDS. It appears as Channel 18 on many Boston area cable systems.
Posted by rickbeyer at 11:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 05, 2005
Literati Redux
I just did my first TV interview for the new book. It was with Smoki Bacon and Dick Concannon on their local cable program The Literati Scene. The interview was taped at the Swan Café at the Park Plaza Hotel, in Boston’s Back Bay, and will air sometime in November. (Smoki is a character in her own right… check out a previous blog entry about her here.)
After the interview the guests had lunch with Smoki and Dick. Smoki sat on my left, and her old friend John Winthrop Sears sat on my right. John was a fixture in local politics for many years, once headed up the Metropolitan District Commission, and ran for governor (“the one job I really wanted.” he says) against Mike Dukakis in 1982. (The Duke won) He is apparently a direct descendant of John Winthrop, one of our state’s first governors. He’s also the cousin of the John Sears who manaaged Ronald Reagan’s first—and unsuccessful—presidential campaign in 1976. He talked like George Plimpton and looked like John Houseman, and was filled with delightful stories about Bostonians and Boston politics. He claims to have coined a word to capture the spirit of President George W. Bush: Textosterone. (I love it!) He also told me a story about a fight over a pig leading to Massachusetts having a bicameral legislature…definitely have to check that one out.
Sitting across from me was Brenton Simon, CEO of the New England Historica Geneology Society, and author of Witches, Rakes and Rogues, which looks to be a book chock full of wonderful stories Also across the table was novelist Anthony Doer, from Boise Idaho, who is just finishing up a multi-city tour for his novel About Grace, which just came out in paperback. Lots of great conversation, it was a joy to just sit back and listen (although I did manage to do some talking as well!!) Someone described the gathering as being a “salon,” and I think that captures it just right.
Posted by rickbeyer at 04:47 PM | Comments (2)
September 17, 2005
The Literati Scene
I went to a party the other night at the home of a most extraordinary woman. Her name is Smoki Bacon, and she lives with her husband Dick Concannon in an 1842 brownstone a few steps from Boston�s Public Garden. I was there along with a hundred or so other guests, feeling, as I always do at one of Smoki�s affairs, as if I have entered another dimension, one where I hobnob with literary luminaries and blue-blooded Brahmins, and wonder how I got past the transom.
Smoki has been described in the pages of the Boston Globe as a �legendary Back Bay socialite,� a �socialite superhostess� and �Boston�s Perle Mesta.� She is a 70 plus year old woman with long white hair and the biggest glasses you have ever seen. A fixture on the Boston social scene and a board member for charities too numerous to mention, she and her husband also produce and host a local cable TV show entitled �The Literati Scene.� They videotape interviews with authors and other luminaries at the Swann Caf� at Boston�s Park Plaza Hotel, each operating the camera for the other. After the interviews are done, they sit down for a luncheon with their guests. It�s most civilized�sort of a Boston version of the roundtable at the Algonquin. I appeared on the show in 2003 and will be taping another interview in a few weeks. When I was on the first time, I thought, �God, why is my publicist sending me to this local cable show.� As it turned out, I had a delightful time�and was surprised at the number of people who later saw it. At lunch afterwards, the person who sat next to me was William Taubman, an Amherst College professor who had just written a biography of Nikita Khrushchev. A few months later he won they Pulitzer Prize for it. You never know who you�ll meet when you hang out with Smoki.
Every September, Smoki and Dick hold a big party for all the folks who have appeared on the show, and a passel of old friends as well. I�ve been to three of these bashes, and each one is a trip. There is no other venue in my life where I can converse with the former ambassador to Pakistan, chat up the authors of a new diet book, exchange cards with a jazz pianist performing next month at New York�s Lincoln center, and listen in as bow tied Harvard grads recall their classmates from the Class of 51�all in the space of a few minutes. Then there�s house itself�chock full with an eclectic mix of books and antiques, and pictures�omigod, millions of pictures of Smoki and Dick, and autographed photos of everyone from Babe Ruth to Kitty Carlisle.
Upon meeting Smoki, I assumed she was a 7th generation Brahmin, born to the breed, old money all the way, and yet it isn�t so. According to the Boston Globe, she was born �Adelaide Ruth Ginepra, the daughter of impecunious parents of Italian and Scottish heritage.� Her mother, says Smoki, was a battered woman who threw her father out. They barely scraped by until she graduated from Brookline High in 1945. She married a man named Ed Bacon (the Bacons being an old time Boston family) in 1957. Then, according to the Globe, she �began her quest for fun and fulfillment in the tricky world of Boston society, which in those days was dominated by a notoriously exclusive class of rich Anglo-Saxon Protestants.�
Her life hasn�t always been easy. In 1974, her husband died from cyanide poisoning. Smoki maintains to this day that he was murdered by his business partner, who is currently serving a life sentence for another murder. The insurance company, according to the Boston Globe, �claimed he committed suicide because he was miserable over his wife's social activities, her insistence on living in town and her refusal to cook at home. (The family joke has been: If you want to get away from Mother, go to the kitchen; she never goes there.)�
Over the years she has gotten into the society columns scads of times, and her parties are legendary. One year, when people simply wouldn�t leave, she began ringing a loud bell and walking room-to-room announcing last call. She and her second husband, Dick Concannon (who she met at a Harvard reunion) have also raised done a huge amount of fundraising for local charities. Every year she acts as a surrogate mother to a couple of foreign students at Harvard. (I find this particularly heartwarming, since my mother did the same thing foreign students at Brown).
I love these parties, I really do. Every August the invitation comes in the mail, and every September I show up. I will continue to go as long as Smoki continues to invite me. I get to meet interesting people, the company is unfailingly pleasant, and I always leave with a glow, knowing that I have been briefly admitted to a world I usually can only read about on the society pages, and what�s more, I have affirmed for another year my tenuous claim to being part of Boston�s �Literati Scene.�
Posted by rickbeyer at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)
September 05, 2005
Escape from New Orleans
So there we were, washing down some spicy barbecued shrimp with a Turbo Dog beer at a restaurant on Chartres Street in New Orleans� French Quarter. Little did we know that 24 hours later we would be fleeing the city, part of a monumental traffic jam of cars trying to leave New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina bore down on the Big Easy.
My wife and son and I arrived in New Orleans on Friday afternoon, laden with suitcases full of our daughter Bobbie�s stuff. Our daughter was already there, taking part in a weeklong Tulane pre-orientation program called the NOLA Experience. She had spent the week camping near Baton Rouge, learning the basics of Cajun cooking, touring the city by bike, and taking part in numerous other Big Easy experiences. On the last night of the orientation, a Friday, she attended a Ravens football game at the Super Dome, where she told us air conditioning was so cold she had to wear a jacket.
Friday night the storm seemed to be somebody else�s problem. People knew it was there, but expected it to land off in Florida someplace, and prove only a minor inconvenience at the most. The next morning, things had changed dramatically. The forecasts were dire and the newscasts talked of a possible evacuation. We arrived at Tulane around 10 AM, amid thousand of other students and parents trying to move in. Bedlam. We had no sooner unpacked all of Bobbie�s belongings in her third floor dorm room when word came that Tulane was going to shut down because of the incoming storm. All the students would have to evacuate by 5 PM, and it was recommended that everyone leave town.
Imagine the situation from Bobbie�s point of view. This is the only college she really wanted to attend, and the only college she applied to. She has a developed a deep love of Louisiana Culture and New Orleans. Finally, after point toward this moment for two years, she�s finally there. And now, before the college experience that she�s been dreaming of can even start, she has to leave. I was and remain amazed at the resiliency she has shown through this whole experience
What to do? We checked the airport�the flights out were all packed. We came to a quick decision that we should hit the road in our rental car, and listening to the news reports, it became clear that the wisest course would be to leave immediately. We talked about where we had friends that could put us up, and eventually decided on Houston as a destination. We called friends there. �Houston, we have a problem,� I said. (Actually I didn�t think of that line until later, but I wish I had said it.) They generously offered us shelter in their home.
We grabbed an early lunch and sent Bobbie back to her room to pack a bag. (At this point Tulane was planning to reopen in three days, so she only brought a few things, leaving everything else she owns�even her journal going back to 6th grade�in her 3rd floor room, where we hope it still sits.) Then we all headed to the French Quarter where we checked out of the Place D�Armes hotel. (The sign on the lobby desk noted that any car left in the elevator garage would be inaccessible once the electricity went out�I�ll bet many are there still) and grabbed some Caf� Dumond caf� au lait for the road. We headed west on I-10 at about 2 PM.
The drive from New Orleans to Houston usually takes 5-6 hours. It took us more than 13 hours. Traffic on I-10 was bumper to bumper, with everyone trying to flee the city, and we crawled along at 5 MPH for the first three hours. Then we got diverted off of I-10 West (the road we wanted to stay on) and onto I-55 North toward Jackson Mississippi. We were directed into the �Contra Flow� lanes�headed north on what is usually the southbound side. We couldn�t get off�the Louisiana Highway Patrol was preventing us (and thousands of other cars) from going anywhere but north. The staties wouldn�t even talk when we tried to ask how to get back on the road to Houston; they just kept waving us north. People were cutting across the median in order to break free of the highway. Eventually, about 20 miles south of the Mississippi line, we were able to get off and make our way on smaller roads back to Baton Rouge, and eventually back onto I-10 West. But it took us 7 hours to get from New Orleans to Baton Rouge�usually a 90-minute drive.
Things eased a bit after that, but traffic continued to be extremely heavy, and sometimes slowed down to a crawl. It was an odyssey that I will long remember. Hour after hour of driving through the night, across Louisiana to Lake Charles (with oil refineries lit up like Christmas trees) through Beaumont, and finally into Houston. The kids were stoic. We discovered that the van had a Sirius Satellite radio, and we discovered the joys of having 184 stations of music and talk�we listened to all of them. One news report was particularly memorable. The Governor of Louisiana was exhorting people to pray in order to reduce the size of the hurricane. �Pray it down� she told Louisianans, and that became the mantra for our trip.
I remember at one point, probably about 2:30 AM, with everyone else dozing as we approached Houston, I suddenly began wondering if this sudden drive to Houston was horrible overreaction that I would seem silly in the morning.
We pulled into our friends� street at about 3:30 AM. Somehow they managed to be gracious even at that hour, welcoming us into their home, leading us to our rooms, fixing food for My daughter, and staying up to chat with the exhausted, wired family that had dropped in out of the sky.
We arrived home late Monday night, safe and sound. As events unfolded, we thanked our stars that we got out while the getting was good. Everything we�ve gone through pales to what has happened to those people in New Orleans who have lost everything, or have had to cope with the terrible conditions there, and our hearts go out to them. But it has still been a n emotional rollercoaster for our daughter.
On Thursday Tulane made the inevitable announcement: the first semester would be cancelled. We know it was coming, but still Bobbie was in tears. We hugged, and I told her that I believed she would be back there soon. �I believe it too� she said. She spends a lot of time every day Instant Messaging other Tulane students, and monitoring Tulane-related blogs, and is doing some volunteer work for the Red Cross. She remains fiercely committed to the college and the city, and while she will probably attend classes locally this fall, Tulane is her school, and she can�t wait to get back there.
Posted by rickbeyer at 06:29 PM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2005
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury
I just finished up jury service on a case in civil court. It involved about 5 days of testimony and one day of deliberations. The experience was absolutely fascinating, especially the dynamics of 14 people in the jury room trying to come together on an understanding of just what actually in happened in what was essentially a he said, she said case. I was very impressed with the judge and my fellow jurors. They were attentive and thoughtful during the trial and deliberations, cheerful and lighthearted in the recesses, and quite serious about wanting justice to be done, whatever that might entail. Our deliberations were spirited but respectful, and they really helped us to come together for our final verdict. The whole thing gave me at It gave me great faith in the jury system.
Something quite unexpected was that the judge let us ask questions (in writing) of the witnesses. After the lawyers were done with a witness, Judge Hines asked if members of the jury had any questions. After we wrote them down and gave them to her, she went over them in sidebar with the attorneys to hear any objections they might have, and then she asked the questions that made the cut. This was a great way to keep the jury involved, and it also elicited some very interesting information that otherwise would never have come out. In my opinion, this should be a regular feature of all jury trials.
We found for the plaintiff on one count, and had to award damages for mental pain and suffering (it was a racial discrimination case). This was very difficult to do, as there are no guidelines. You are pretty much pulling a number out of thin air. We were all over the map on numbers, and reasons for those numbers. Coming up with a final number that at least 12 of the 14 people could agree on involved a lot of comprimise.
Posted by rickbeyer at 08:46 AM | Comments (0)