Lawyers Reveal The Funniest Ways People Have Blown Cases (r/AskReddit | Reddit Stories)

legal professionals have read it what's the funniest way you've ever seen a lawyer or defendant blow a court case a short one the judge recused himself from a criminal case publicly stating that he knew the defendant and he was the son of a b tch and guilty as hell ROH I mean yeah the judge should definitely recuse himself but saying that second part is prejudicial as hell thankfully it's Hara saying not admissible as evidence it would be hilarious and legal however for the prosecution to bring the former judge up as a character witness I had a case where a lawyer who apparently had expertise in areas other than litigation decided to litigate a case for one of his clients he asks to depose my guy no problem I meet with my guy and get him all prepared for testimony we sit down at the deposition he's sworn in and we're ready to go first question isn't when you please state your name or anything like that first question was something like isn't it the truth in this case that on the sixth of April 2004 you and then a conclusive statements about his whole time I objected my guy says no our the lawyer shuffled his papers and after a lengthy pause asks the second question you sure I represent school districts one of my clients has a farm that is used to teach agricultural science to the students the manager of the farm decides to brutally euthanize a ton of chickens in full view of a group of elementary school students sometimes farms after euthanize chickens that wasn't the problem the problem was that he was whacking the chickens over the head with a hammer and he had to whack each chicken like 5-6 times before they died because he is apparently some kind of psychopath the poor chickens were not dying that didn't deter him if one refused to die he'd just tossed the chicken on the ground and try again with another one but the birds were all getting horrifically damaged so they were flapping in circles on the ground all walking with terrible stuttering limps or screaming one of the kids recorded it in Jesus Christ it was awful to watch so I recommended the school district fire him immediately because holy hell he sued for gender discrimination my brother was on a jury back in the days of MySpace a woman had been hit by a big rig during foggy weather she was suing for a back injury the last day of the trial they asked her if she has a myspace account and brought up her site for the jury to see I think all the profiles were opened then there's a picture of her dancing on the hood of a car and right next to it is a text exchange of her saying that she shouldn't go out too much because her lawyer says that she has to look injured needless to say she lost that case a funny historical one here martial knee is on trial for treason after Napoleon gets overthrown for the second time his lawyer desperately tries to save the marshals life with an unusual take on things due to a broader change martial knees hometown was at the time of the trial in Prussia therefore argued a lawyer martial knee was not technically French and accordingly could not be guilty of treason marshal knee disagreed and shouted out to the court I am French and I will remain French . he was subsequently found guilty and sentenced to death this also has a double whammy with baddest last words he asked for and was given permission to lead his own firing squad his last words to them were soldiers when I give the command to fire fire straight at my heart wait for the order it will be my last to you I protest against my condemnation I have fought a hundred battles for France and not won against her soldiers fire talk about a way to die I once attended oral arguments for US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit it's pretty much the big time I watched a lawyer argue about his client received what's known as ineffective assistance of counsel at the trial from which she was appealing the attorney however was not doing a very good job during oral arguments so at one point one of the judges on the panel leans forward and asks him counselor are you currently providing ineffective assistance of counsel imagine getting that kind of burn from a judge in Second Circuit appeals do you just turn in your law degree and become a homesteader judges will burn the Frick out of attorneys at every level my father is an attorney and he always had a story for us when we asked him this question he tells it way better than I do but I'll give it a shot some dude was allegedly smashing a wall with a sledgehammer with others in order to break into a private property the cops rolled up and he's the only one to get caught fast forward a few months and this guy's in court apparently a cop says something about how the defendant was the only one court but there were two other men who fled on foot and couldn't be apprehended my father's clients face lights up in an aha moment and immediately tells the judge not true there were four of us . i guess he thought if he could disprove someone at the said head be let go safe to say he was found guilty of vandalism my father says the judge just kind of sighed and told my father it would be a good idea to keep his client quiet this is great reminds me of a judge judy episode where the plaintiff accused two boys of stealing money out of her person the defendants response was not true there was no money in that purse defendant is apprehended for warrants and asks judge for bail tells judge he moved and was not served with the warrants some question as to his identity judge asks defendant where he was born death says puto Rico defendant totally looks mestizo not Puerto Rican at all judge asks wherein puto Rico defendant says San Juan judge asks defendant when were you last in San Juan defendant says a couple of years ago judge asked defendant how did you get there defendant replies I went on the Amtrak judge would not grant bail when you flunk geography it's for a long time lawyer was verbally running through the evidence against the guy he was defending trying to claim there wasn't enough to even call a trial all totally fine except he said I believe a more seasoned judge wouldn't have let this trial move forward not knowing that the judge he's speaking to gave the okay to move the trial to this court he was immediately given a hard motion denied I was the respondent not the lawyer in a civil case where the county accused me of violating a rule that a house cannot have more than two parties in a month the county's prime witness admitted on the stand that one the rule was implemented specifically in response to a complaint against me to the rule was not written in the county code 3 the rule was not included in my warning letter nor in my citation for the county had no expectation of ever applying this rule to any other resident in the future the judge declared the rule null and void a very rich neighborhood near me became a college town when a campus was added their residents were not happy to have neighboring houses rented out to packs of college kids so they had a local ordinance passed saying that no more than three unrelated people could live together in the same house which caused quite a bit of consternation and so was quickly and quietly amended to no more than three unrelated people accepting maids and servants could live together in the same house so then the old money felt safe and happy again when a cop came to the door the 4th college student in the house would say he was the butler the fifth was the cook etc sovereign citizens always make for a good time there was the guy getting a divorce from his wife of 25 years his entire argument for why he shouldn't pay alimony to his wife who stayed home taking care of their eight kids three of whom was still at home is that since his wife would no longer do her marital duties it wasn't a marriage she wouldn't sleep with him because he was against trying to prevent more kids happening at all then reference the Bible on top of it the judges face was priceless I think it would be a hilarious loophole in the law if someone claiming sovereign status and exempt from the law could be declared exempt from all law including ones that protect them okay you don't want the law to apply to you bailiff take this man round back and horsewhip him until he changes his mind ' if you don't want to be responsible under the law the law shouldn't be responsible for what happens to you I don't know how true this story is but my dad said he took his Camaro out late at nights to speed and got an exhibition of speed ticket challenged it in court saying it wasn't couldn't be an exhibition of speed because he was alone there was no one to exhibit speed to got on something like this one was arrested for disturbing the peace in that jurisdiction at least one person had to be disturbed showed up to trial cops read their statements in full my lawyer asked if they had any evidence that anyone was disturbed they had forgotten to ask anyone so I got off after argument from the assistant district attorney the judge asked defense counsel why he should allow the defendant to remain on his own recognizance defense counsel looks up obviously searching for any reason he can because he knows his client is a dirtbag and this is what he comes up with because his girlfriend lives in the apartment above mine and I'll hear her crying all night defendant remanded to jail I worked as a paralegal in a firm specializing in land use litigation and real estate another paralegals husband got a DWI and as a favor to her one of the partners offered to defend her husband in court this is a small town with a landmark windmill in the center of town well this paralegals husband's who we all called the missing link DWI stemmed from him crashing his car into the window front page of the local paper reporters at the arraignment the whole nine yards so the law firm partner tells the missing link that when the judge asks him how many beers he had before his accident he should tell him he had three he proceeds to stand in front of the judge and tell her he had three cases the whole room started laughing and he ended up getting jail time not an exact fit for the answer but I once worked at a company well he found out that a lawyer was trying to arrange a class-action suit against house before it got off the ground we found out because this lawyer attempted to email her client but accidentally emailed us instead with all the details of the class-action I was an expert engineer witness at a deposition defending a contractor who happened to be an engineer himself plaintiff claimed he was liable as an engineer as well as the contractor defense was he was the contractor but that doesn't mean he was the engineer for the project just because he was one after six hours of headache-inducing questioning plaintiff's lawyer pulls out a letter from one certified by the contractor that simply stated I am the engineer for the project he sits back and basically has that look of let's see what you've got to say now fer obligatory not a lawyer but I took a class on constitutional rights where we had to read decisions from my country's Supreme Court there was this one where a woman was suing her employer a company because IT had found SX pics of the woman on the company's computer IT gave the tip to HR who proceeded to contact the company's legal department in a how the woman was fired and she sued because she claimed that by showing the pics to the lawyer the company was going against right to privacy each are also threatened to release the pics to the other employees if the woman kept suing or something like that in the end the court decided that HR had to return the pics to the woman and that was it the funny thing was that the woman claimed that those pics weren't a sex pics even though she was naked and in suggestive poses she claimed that she had arrived Taj from work passed out on her bed and her little daughter took those pics a prominent female attorney didn't like the judge's ruling in a family law case she asked him if he was from another planet the judge said I beg your pardon she approached the bench without permission and very rudely repeated her question judge told her to apologize she refused the judge had her thrown in the lockup for contempt of court never frick with the judge and never approached the bench into the world without permission the bailiff will tackle you my professor was a lawyer has worked on both sides of the law and says the funniest tea in courses when someone attempts to represent themselves he said they never know what they're doing and usually blow it for themselves plus counsel is a free right my dad represented himself in a small case probably not constitutional but I don't know sh t was given a speeding ticket and asked how they knew they were measuring speed correctly cops said they had a button to press to recalibrate the system and my dad pointed out that a machine shouldn't be in charge of recalibrating itself without testing paid more by refuting than he would have for eating the ticket though kept it off his record at least in courtroom we're all they do his restraining orders everyone gets there at one time in the morning and sits in the chairs and judge calls the cases one by one dude purposely sits next to girl getting the restraining order against him and starts trying to hold her hand and T she yells and asks for help and bro had to wait outside when it was his turn the judge was so mad he almost sent him to jail so this wasn't the defendant but a plaintiff I was on a jury for a civil trial there were two co plaintiffs suing one defendant the first co plaintiff was being represented by his father who was an elder guy and didn't seem to have much experience in court for the first week of the trial seemingly every other question was being a ejected - usually because his questions weren't questions or he was trying to elicit testimony that was hearsay he basically P said everyone often presented a terrible case the second co plaintiff then gets on the stand and it was clear that he was there very reluctantly it gets to the defendants lawyer turn cross-examination and the co plaintiff blurts out that the only reason why he's there is because of a fiduciary duty to the other plaintiff then he gets asked if he feels the defendant owes him any money and he just says no it was six weeks of this stupid trial it wasn't every day and there was no trial during the week fo Thanksgiving but it was excruciating and we the jury ended up awarding no money to anyone what a colossal waste of time now I was being questioned as a prospective juror in a personal injury case eight people had already been seated and the plaintiff's attorney asked me the same question he had asked everyone else and gotten yes of course as an answer do you feel that a person has a right to be compensated for his injuries my answer probably loud or unslung than it needed to be was not if he got hurt because he did something stupid I had poisoned the entire jury pool including those already seated they settled out of court in ten minutes for an amount much smaller than they were asking for my dad did this once but he asked the lawyer if he really want me to answer because my answer will bias the other jury members judge told him to answer and he said the way I see it the only people who have anything to gain in this lawsuit are the lawyers judge sent the lawyers to settle in the hallway not a defendant but there was this dude in the court I interned as who went in with his friend but wore a shirt with the exact colour as the ones in group trials the bailiff mistook him for a convict and was asking him to sit down hell no man I'm just here to see my friend I ain't got no case he was the one who got caught I got away no no he didn't get away not my case but still a personal favorite I was sitting in court waiting for my turn case going was a littering case officer said he saw the defendant throw the clear apper on a pack of gum out of his window guy decided to defend himself girlfriend takes the stand officer has already testified guy asks did I throw a gum wrapper out the window she replies no you did not with this huge grin on her face the defendant is now also grinning and goes what did I throw out the window to which she replies it was the plastic wrapper from your cigarettes guy rests his case right there literally thought he would get off because the officer couldn't properly identify the clear plastic that he admits to throwing out the window defendant was willing to stay on probation conditioned on jail until a bed became available due to the circumstances of the defendants age and minor violations the judge was very open to the possibility so this was argued out in rebuttal to the defense lawyers argument the prosecutor said something the defendant didn't like the defendant stood up called us all racists and said send my frickin us to prison you know that scene where Jerry Maguire pleads with rod to help me help you it was 100x worse I used to be a police officer and spent a lot of time in court and saw a lot of things go really wrong for people but the one that sticks out is a guy who was up for DUI he started relating his side of the story and tells the judge he only had two bottles of wine his lawyer is desperately trying to get him to stop talking and he yelled at his own lawyer don't interrupt me and the judge says I think you should take a moment to listen to your attorney and then he told the judge don't tell me what to do I'm not a damn child the judge just smiled and leaned back and said by all means continue it went badly for him and surprisingly I spent two days in jail many many moons ago I ended up in the felony section that was fun anyhow I met some pretty interesting characters on such gentlemen I can't remember his name let's call him Bob there were about four of us in a Cell and we're just shooting the she and discussing why everyone is in here bob is back in jail he is borderline Rhett Robert before this current situation he was facing two felonies for I don't remember his lawyer eventually convinces the court that he can't stand trial because he is not mentally competent they eventually let him go what's the first thing he decides to do once he gets out of jail try to steal the first car he sees in front of the courthouse which is adjacent to the jail didn't cross his mind that cops would be in and out of that area all the time he was back in jail probably 20-30 minutes after he got out after beating two felonies oof my grandfather was a big-time lawyer back in the day foreign oil company in one case it was the federal government that blew the whole case my grandpa showed up to court and the first thing he said was that they didn't have jurisdiction the judge was like I'm a federal circuit court judge the highest judge around how can this be out of my jurisdiction the oil in question was drilled in Texas refined into gasoline in Texas and sold in Texas gas stations since it never crossed state lines interstate commerce never happened so the federal government has no jurisdiction the judge just said he was right and closed the case he said off the guys from Washington you know but when I was 20 I had already gotten a speeding ticket and had done my driver's ed class in an attempt to keep it off my record when I got another speeding ticket days before the one-year period would end a second ticket well on your probationary period causes a license to be revoked I go to court by myself and the judge says well well well you're the unfortunate one the prosecutor Larson just offers the eight hour extended courses punishment I went to court with a friend who was really nervous and just needed someone to sit with him d ugh Court was very interesting one girl was there with her mom who kept trying to speak for her the judge would ask a question the mom would answer the judge would remind the mother that her daughter was 18 and could speak for herself this mom would not listen and was piecing the judge off the mom even started getting an attitude with the judge and started saying she's a child she's scared the judge was like mom she's 18 she's not a child anymore he finally threatened her with contempt of course and that got her to be quiet the girl ended up getting a slightly harsher punishment than the other people pleading youthful offender and I defiantly think her mom helped with that instead of having drug test once a month that are fifty dollars she was put on color-code this seemed to make the mom mad who tried to say something again but this time the daughter elbowed her when I was clocking for a judge a defendant wrote to the judge trying to explain that the two bonds found on the floorboard of the car were actually his girlfriends but he was afraid to speak up earlier because she's on section 8 and x fo bidden for section 8 recipients mind you he was on probation at the time the cops pulled him over and it didn't matter who owned the bonds he was still in violation of his probation for being in possession of nerd paraphernalia his attempt to get out from his charges not only screwed over his girlfriend but it also showed that he knew of the bonds that were in her ask our landlord didn't want to sue for eviction under her name because she was collecting rent in cash and not declaring it while her building was in foreclosure so she had her accountants who apparently thought there is such thing as client accountant privilege and that kind of thing sue the tenants in his name so this random accountant shows up at eviction court with the tenants his name isn't attached to the building or the leases in any way but he swears he can get the landlord on the phone to vouch that he's authorized to do this in her name judge dismissed the case with no prejudice you can't borrow someone else's name to sue someone if you're trying to do illegal things under your own name or at all for that matter the accused was being sentenced after a common suggestion by both the crown and defense attorneys when it came to calculating the total amount of days to be purged according to each infraction the defense attorney started arguing that the crown had her numbers wrong in that of the sentence was supposed to be 75 days longer than what was about to be agreed upon the accused or just dropped in disbelief I have a bunch but my favorite is a group of LLC members who refuse to hire a lawyer for the company as required by the local rules they keep getting their filings stricken it's to the point where the judge doesn't even set a hearing anymore they file whatever they file I move to strike and the court enters an order striking it I am a lawyer now but this was when I was in law school and we had to go watch actual court cases in the local district court a guy is accused of destroying some stuff his neighbor owns after a complicated plea by his lawyer about how some evidence is inadmissible and therefore it cannot be proven the defendant is guilty the judge delivers the verdict agrees with the lawyers and acquits him the defendant gets up walks towards the judge as if to shake his hand and says thank you your honor I'll never do it again the prosecutor than quasi jokingly says appeal . not a lawyer but once was observing court defendant is being asked by the judge if he understands a question as he was not a native speaker defendant refuses to answer instead claiming to plead the fifth judge explains you can't plead the fifth because that's only four sworn testimony not if say the judge asks if you understand the question being asked he continues to decline to speak the judge is visibly upset at this point because defendant is just being a D CK his attorney whispers to him they seem at odds his attorney then explains to the judge that's after this appearance he will no longer be able to represent the defendant I had a client show up to court wearing the same dress she had on in the video showing her damaging her ex's property bonus I had another client who was sleeping on a couch when his roommate invited the cops in he was under a blanket so the cops asked him to stand up for their safety Dumbo stood up and a baggie of meth fell out of his lap into the ground he had no idea how it got there I'm going to share some advice for all you fine folks you don't have to let a cop search your car or home seriously tell them to pounce and my Krim defense prof had a doormat that said come back with a warrant if they threatened to get a warrant be nice and tell them you'll wait I love cops but too often they violate your constitutional rights and that crap needs to stop a girl who was about to completely get off with no more than an adult caution due to her going to Australia well she decided that even this was not fair as she shouldn't be getting any punishment she was arrested for stealing her boyfriend's car hitting three vehicles has no licence leaving the scene arriving back to the house and threatening him with a knife before we had to bring her a gunpoint onto her stomach where once arrested she damaged a police vehicle and spattered the custody sergeant the boyfriend refused to make a statement and said he was driving in the cast TSgt decided to leave the whole spitting thing when she got into the box she took off a shoe and threw it in the direction of the judge naturally the size of the courtroom and her not being Leblon meant that it didn't get far safe to say after that she ended up with some time having to be served inside and subsequently no Australia I was working for a barrister who turned up to a hearing and discovered that opposing counsel had secretly contacted the judge's chambers with a whole bunch of information about the case that's a horrendous breach of professional ethics are one of the very very basic rules of litigation is that you file stuff with both the judge and the other side except in very special circumstances my barrister just kind of shrugged his shoulders at the judgement asked if he knew about the information the judge spent the rest of the hearing tearing the opposition apart they lost an absolutely unlosable case I was a divorce attorney in Los Angeles CA for 16 years before I moved to Phoenix AZ and started my own private practice years ago in Cali I had a client that was being divorced by her husband she was a smoking-hot woman in her 20s and he claimed she was being unfaithful so he divorced her but he didn't have any evidence so I thought we had a pretty rock-solid case and my client would get a decent share of his fortune who worked in oil and gas and was worth millions during the trial one of the bailiffs recognized my clients and told the judge this is where things got bad for us turns out my client was their sex addict and doing pornography in the San Fernando Valley while she was married to her husband and the bailiff embarrassingly recognized her from one of her videos online the judge reviewed the evidence and privates in her chamber with me and his lawyer and awarded my client nothing I was in a conference in a large d c-- law firm fifteen or twenty expensive lawyers and me one lawyer made a particularly stupid statement and I suppressed a laugh he got P said Andrew Lee tried to put me in my place by reminding me that I was the least educated person in the room I countered by reminding him that half of all lawyers graduated in the bottom half of their class he blurted out it couldn't be that high then I really laughed at him I used to work with an engineer that liked to tell a story about the time he gave a deposition on a patent case he answered a bunch of questions about a discussion that had occurred in a specific meeting five years prior at the end the lawyer asked when that conversation had occurred my coworker gave the exact time and date of the conversation the lawyer then asked how he could possibly be so sure about the exact time of a meeting that occurred years in the past my co-workers response was I remember because right after that meeting I went back to my desk and suffered a heart attack there were apparently no further questions [Music]

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Id: 8tAL0n05luo

Length: 31min 51sec (1911 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 13 2020