Attorneys Victoria Elsmore and Amy Krupinski join Tom to tell the tale of their family court jury trial. They represented the biological father in the case in which the mother and her husband sought to have the issue of paternity determined by jury. The jury was to decide between the competing presumptions. They discovered that court rules do not really contemplate family court juvenile trials. The attorneys had to work around those rules. There was the additional challenge of language and cultural barriers to address in the case.

Before they could even get started, the trial court’s decision to grant a jury trial was appealed all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court. Once that was resolved, they had to address unique issues large and small. From basic questions like how many jurors to seat. To nuanced questions like voir dire of the jurors and then selection. They had to create jury instructions essentially from scratch. They had to do an oral closing to the jury and then wait for deliberations to decide paternity. Ultimately, the biological father prevailed on paternity, but issues of parenting time and custody remain to be resolved.