Important or Memorable Cases Attorney in Long Beach, California

Officers Shot In Hotel

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My son was the captain of the football team in Rolling Hills and one of the guys who played with him mother was the sister of a woman whose husband was shot dead in a robbery at the penthouse of a famous hotel or well-known chain of hotels as was another police officer. And we got a call just before the statute ran and they wondered there was responsibility on the part of the hotel. And that always seems like a longshot because mots of these hotels, I think, do their – are very serious about their security and related issues.

Well, we called the other attorney and said we need the history, the crime’s history for this property because you know, if somebody broke into the gumball machine three years ago you probably don’t need anything. And if, on the other hand, there have been 13 armed robberies in the last eight years, which it turned out there ultimately were and 148 part one felonies, which they denied. And four people testified under oath they didn’t know if any crime on the property including the security manager and a manager a regional manager with plenty of access to the reports, which they claim didn’t exist. And so, what looked to be kind of a labor of love turned out to be a really important thing for these two widows.

We got a huge settlement while the jury was out and they hadn’t offered anything going into the trial. But they did some things that probably, at least interesting to me, maybe fun to me. When we choose a jury here in the office and we do a lot of that kind of work, I just say ladies and gentlemen, I’m Skip Keesal and I’m here, I represent so and so and so and so’s helping me with this. And we have a young lawyer, hopefully be able to witness or two. I’ve heard people ask me what you feel like you’re leaning one way or the other and I think our view is that it’s our responsibility to demonstrate that we’re entitled to your verdict. I think we’re comfortable that we can do that. So I would urge you unless you say I just can’t vote for Skip’s client or I just can’t vote for the other people, that I’d urge you to stay. No, thank you very much. Well, in this particular case the other attorney spent three and a half days. I thought projected an image which did nothing to dignify the process.

So finally, we got 12 jurors and the judge swore them in, and then seated six that we were going to interview for possible alternate jurors. And the judge was talking to the six alternates sitting in front of the jury box and he said, do you think you can be fair and impartial? And this woman who had already been sworn stood up, and she pointed, I mean stood up and she pointed at this other attorney and she says, I don’t believe him. The more he talks, the less I believe him, and by the end of this case I don’t believe I’m going to believe a word he says. So that was kind of fun. We had a mistrial. But there were a lot of jurors who hadn’t been chosen at that point who were still in the courtroom so I think that the conduct that I just described perpetuated throughout the trial. And in 27 minutes one of the jurors asked a question about the punitive damage instruction and sober minds prevailed and the nice ladies didn’t have to stock the Von’s store at night from 12:00 -7:00 in the morning. And are having a nice life, a nice life they deserve but unfortunately, without their husbands.

Long Beach, CA commercial litigation attorney Skip Keesal talks about a case he worked on involving the death of some officers.

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