News & Insights

Lightfoot Partner Terry McCarthy Publishes Article on Recent United States Supreme Court Decision

July 11, 2017

Lightfoot, Franklin & White LLC partner Terry McCarthy has co-authored an article (beginning on page 284) for the July 2017 issue of The Alabama Lawyer on a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision involving witness testimony. McCarthy, who also serves as an adjunct professor of evidence law at Cumberland School of Law, wrote the article with one of his students, Callie Brister.

The article, titled “The Newly-Created Racial Bias Exception to the General Rule that Precludes Jurors from Offering Testimony to Impeach Their Own Verdict,” focuses on the March 6, 2017 Supreme Court decision in Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado, 137 S.Ct. 855 (2017). In its decision, the court created a new exception to the general rule that jurors may not provide testimony about statements during jury deliberations if offered to challenge the validity of a verdict or indictment. McCarthy and Brister provide insight as to the potential impact of this decision on jury trials going forward.

McCarthy (along with Charles Gamble and Robert Goodwin) serves as co-author of the two leading treatises on Alabama evidence law: Gamble’s Alabama Rules of Evidence and McElroy’s Alabama Evidence. He also serves on the advisory committee to the Alabama Rules of Evidence.