Kale Alexander played football for the Carolina Gamecocks back in the days when they wore leather helmets. He was still a mountain of a man in his sixties when I met him. When he stood up in a courtroom, everybody took notice. He was best known for winning criminal cases knowing little, if anything, about his client or the facts before the trial started. Except for witnesses he chewed up and spit out on cross examination, he was jovial and friendly to everybody in the courtroom, even young lawyers like me sent down to the courthouse for the first time to cover a criminal docket sounding.
You quickly learn lawyers spend a good deal of their time waiting in courtrooms for whatever is supposed to happen to happen. That’s when lawyers crack jokes and poke fun at each other to pass the time. Mr. Alexander tagged me right off as a newbie lawyer and loudly pretended to be impressed with the new briefcase my mother had given me when I became one. He made a huge production out of my actually having a printed copy of the docket we were sounding, an actual 8 by 11 yellow legal pad, and an official copy of the South Carolina Rule book, which he grabbed and held up for everyone to see. When he asked what was in it, I sheepishly said it had the Court Rules and Rules of Evidence in it. He laughed and said out loud for everyone to hear, “You don’t need a book to explain the rules of evidence to you, I’ll tell everything you need to know” to me and all the other lawyers standing within earshot.
The rules of evidence are like playing football, he began in all seriousness. You line up on the ball and get down in your stance. You look the player across the line from you right in the eye and tell him, when the ball is hiked, I’m coming over there and knock you down and, when your down I’m kneeing you right in the groin. He paused before continuing, and said you’d better do exactly that when the ball is hiked. Now, when you line up again, and get down in your stance, you need to tell that guy across the line you’re going to do the same thing to him again. And, by God, knowing the guy’s pissed at you for the first time, you’d better muster every once of strength you have so you can do just that. Mr. Alexander stared off with a smile on his face as if remembering having done this on the playing field in his glory days before refocusing and saying, now, pay attention, because here’s where the rules part comes in. Before you line up the third time, you get over next to the down judge, and tell him, listen here, Ref, keep an eye on that guy across the line from me, he’s playing dirty.
And, with that, he laughed a great big laugh, and patted me on the back with his enormous hand almost knocking me over. In that one conversation waiting for the roster sounding to start, I learned more about the Rules of Evidence than I had in three years of law school.
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