In a way, your question is the ultimate evidence question. I am somehow supposed to sift through my perceptions of the last three weeks, hope I can recall them correctly, and then express what I believe to be the significance of all that has happened. I am to tell a story, but whose story am I to tell? The "truth" is that I can only tell you the story of what I have learned in your class and hope that my story matches up with the story in your head about what you were trying to teach.

At the beginning of the course, it seemed as though you were saying a trial is essentially a way of maintaining order in society, and thus it is important that members of that society perceive the process used in the trial to be legitimate. This perception is what matters most. King Solomon might not know how to decide who the "true" mother is, but if people find his means of choosing acceptable, society and respect for the law will not fall apart. This line of thinking extended to our discussion of the jury process and the rules of evidence themselves. They are powerful rhetorical tools designed so that citizens can rest assured that evidence is being tested by the community using well refined rules, but it is not clear that these tools produce anything close to the Truth. If we look too closely at these rules, we may lose faith in them. That is why we do not want to know how the jury reaches it decision and why we accept the idea that people always speak the truth when they are about to die.

In a sense then, a trial generates two sorts of stories. Admitted evidence along with the trial’s ultimate outcome produce one specific story. But every trial tries to produce a more general story as well, a story that the trial process with all its trappings has produced something approximating the truth.

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The insight that a trial and the law are less about obtaining the Truth and more about maintaining governmental legitimacy is empowering, cautionary, and frightening. It is empowering in that it makes me realize as a would-be lawyer that I should not worry so much about proving that which is almost absolutely impossible to prove. Instead, I should master the procedures of a trial so that I can make sure it produces the story I want it to. It is also empowering in that I now know not to accept the idea that trials, or other institutions for that matter, always produce outcomes that reflect the Truth. Knowing this makes me less afraid of being a rebel willing to challenge the products of such institutions. The insight is cautionary because it reminds me that the law and its institutions are resting on shaky ground. It may be important to maintain the illusion that trials produce some kind of fundamental truth, but if too many lawyers and judges believe that illusion, they may try to extend the law into areas where its truth discerning power is exposed as weak at best. As you pointed out in class, law may be unlikely to win in a direct confrontation with science.

Finally, this insight is frightening for two reasons. First, it forces me to ask two questions that are ever present in our "postmodern" world: Is it ever possible to know the Truth, and Does such a thing as the Truth ever exist? But this insight is also frightening for almost the same reason it is empowering. If the product of a trial is more the result of skillful lawyering than it is the product of some sort of Truth being discovered, then as a (hopefully) skillful lawyer, I will have enormous power to manipulate what becomes perceived as the truth by most people. I feel as though your class has been very effective at showing me that the bird is indeed in my hands, but I am still adrift as to what to do with the bird now that I realize I control its fate. How does a lawyer know the cause s/he is telling a persuasive story for is the right cause? How does one decide whether to use ones story telling power to advocate for the families of Woburn or for Beatrice. I still do not know how to choose what causes to pursue. But I thank you for showing me why my choice is so important.