DOJ Conducts Trial Skills and Witness Preparation Training for Prosecutor Trainers
On May 18-19, 2007, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) conducted its third training for Georgian Prosecutor Trainers (see following link for detailed info on the DOJ training plan for prosecutors for year 2007 http://georgia.usembassy.gov/events/2007/event20070414DOJTrain.htm). During the first day of training, Department of Justice Resident Legal Advisor Roger Keller lectured on how to make opening statements and how to interview police officer witnesses in court adversarial proceedings. In his lecture, RLA Keller was joined by US Embassy Police Advisor Mike Nicholson. After one day of lecture and question discussion followed by practical exercises, DOJ organized 15 mock trials for prosecutors, at which a team of 2 prosecutors worked with 2 police witnesses to prepare them to testify at a trial in front of active judges from the Tbilisi Court of Appeals and Tbilisi City Criminal Court.
Such training programs serve the purpose not only of training prosecutor trainers, who thereafter train their colleagues throughout Georgia, but also of exposing police officers and judges to those changes, which will be coming forward when a draft law of Criminal Procedure is fully adopted by the Parliament in 2007. |
