 If you're playing poker with Josef Princiotta, be careful how you
cross your legs. Watch how you fold your hands, too. Don't lean your head
to one side or the other. Don't pierce your eyebrow, don't style your hair
too big and select your earrings carefully. "Eighty percent of what we do is in our genes," Princiotta says, and
that eighty percent shows up on our faces and bodies for him to read, for
that matter for anyone to read who knows how to interpret the signs.
Princiotta is a body mapper who works with defense attorneys in jury selection. Princiotta approaches his work from an Eastern perspective, a
yin/yang method of Chinese medicine he learned from a Japanese teacher while
in the Navy on overseas duty. "It overwhelmed my life," he says. "Everyone
is two people, as represented by the two sides of their faces." The left
side is the heart or yin side and the right side the handshake or yang side. "Plastic surgery fools me sometimes," he admits, but there are some
things facelifts can't hide. Cross your right leg over your left leg and
point your right knee at Princiotta and it says your handshake side is in
control. Point your left knee at him and you're more open to suggestion.
Lean your head to the left and he pegs you as more impulsive, more
intuitive. Lean your head to the right and you're more ready to sell your
story than listen to his. |
A unique hairstyle says you think your story is unique, and perhaps
more important than his client's. He regards earrings as "a mask you're
wearing on the face of your mind." Diamond earrings say "Notice me." Pearl
earrings say "Touch me." One of the most notorious cases he has worked on was the second John Kenneth Peel trial. He flew into Juneau to look at 167 potential jurors, sketching each face, looking at samples of their handwriting, studying their body language. Everyone's two sides are constantly trying to come into balance,
Princiotta says, but "the left side is the one that makes the vote." Every
trial breaks down into statistics and law versus emotion. "Juries are
uncomfortable. No one wants to be on a jury--except the ones you don't
want--and they want to do the right thing. Initially they believe the
judge, and that's it. I want to make the jury comfortable, and especially
comfortable with the defense. I don't want a hung jury." He'd prefer not to be shot at, either, but he was during the Peel
voir dire process. He knows which potential juror did the shooting,
although he couldn't prove it. Princiotta was instrumental in convincing
the Peel defense to rest without presenting any witnesses or testimony. He
knew just from looking at the jury that the prosecution had not proved its
case. He was right. |