Identical Twins & Reasonable Doubt: Eugene's post brought back memories. When I was in college, my grandfather and brother were victims of an armed robbery in my grandfather's tile store in Harvey, Illinois. During my first year of law school, the case went to trial. The defendant was acquitted when the defense produced the defendant's identical twin in court to cast doubt on the eyewitness identification. My brother had heard about the existence of a twin and tried to tell the prosecutor before trial, but he never got the chance in the rushed pretrial interview. Perhaps there was nothing the prosecutor could have done about this problem had he known in advance but, due to his inadequate witness preparation, he was prevented from taking any precautions by the fact he knew nothing about the twin until after the twin appeared in open court.

The three most important values of lawyering: preparation, preparation, preparation.