- [Devin] Thanks to Mack Weldon for keeping LegalEagle in the air and helping me look fly. (eagle screeches) ♪ But she caught me on the counter ♪ ♪ It wasn't me ♪ ♪ Saw me kissin' on the sofa ♪ - Shut up.
♪ It wasn't me ♪ ♪ I even had her in the shower ♪ - Shut up. (gentle chiming music) Hey legal eagles, it's
time to think like a lawyer because I am on vacation. I have left the craziness
that is Washington, DC to try and get a respite from that, but unfortunately the law
follows you everywhere. So today, we're gonna take a deep dive into one of the early 2000's classics, Shaggy, "It Wasn't Me." Because, believe it or not, this is a wonderful piece of law school hypothetical waiting to be analyzed and so we are going to analyze
it in excruciating detail to find out if the it wasn't
me defense actually holds up. If you see an increase in quality today, that's because I have my
friend Patrick Willems, who is the director of
this particular video. So if things look much
better, or much worse, than they usually do,
it's because of Patrick. In fact, there's Patrick right there. - Hey. - Definitely check out
Patrick's YouTube channel, Patrick H Willems, and if not for Patrick then definitely for his parents. All right, so without further ado, let's dig in to Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me." We're actually doing this. (knuckles rapping on door) - Yo, man. - Yo. - Open up, man. - Yeah, what do you want, man? - My girl just caught me. - So, already we have some problems here. It appears that Shaggy
and I believe RikRok, if that's a real person, are in a situation where
one of them has been caught let's call it red handed and
they need some legal advice. RikRok is the one who has
gotten himself in trouble and Shaggy is the reggaeton rapper who is providing the counsel here. Which, in and of itself is a big problem because you can't give legal advice if you're not an attorney. Already, Shaggy here has
made some crucial admissions. If I were to represent him, I
think that I would counsel him not to talk to a random
friend, to talk to a lawyer, and certainly stop making
admissions against interest because if someone got
a hold of this evidence, admission against interest
is a hearsay exception. Shut the (beep) up and
talk to an attorney. - You let her catch you? - I don't know how I left this happen. - With who?
- Okay, ignorance is not a defense. - Nah. - I don't know what to do. - Say it wasn't you. ♪ All right. ♪ - Okay, so this may not
be a strictly legal thing that we need to talk about, but if RikRok is talking
about the girl next door, I feel that in a post-R. Kelly world we need to question how old this girl is. Is she past the age of consent? I'm not sure I actually want to know the answer to this question because if I know that
there is ongoing criminality going on, then I may have an obligation to turn that over to the police here. And, speaking of R. Kelly, commentators have referred
to R. Kelly's defense as the Shaggy defense in
his multiple court trials. - That doesn't even make sense. Why would I hold all these women? ♪ 'Cause I'm a flirt ♪ - So, yeah, that's some terrible stuff to think about as well. ♪ Honey came in and she
caught me red-handed ♪ ♪ Creepin' with the girl next door ♪ ♪ Picture this ♪ ♪ We were both caught makin'
love on the bathroom floor ♪ ♪ How could I forget that I had ♪ ♪ Given her an extra key ♪ - Okay, so what my client here has done is an admission that's not good. He has admitted to giving a key to the woman who he was cheating on. Now, that being said,
obviously that cuts against any defense of trespass here. But, just because you
have given your girlfriend a key to your place
doesn't necessarily mean that she has permission
to enter at all times. Did she enter during
regular business hours? Did she come over at a time late at night when he wouldn't expect her to be there? Does she have cohabitation rights with this particular apartment or house? All of these are potential things that might make it, let's
say, illegal for her to be trespassing in poor RikRok's house. She may not have a claim to be able to legally
enter into the premises. ♪ All this time she was standing there ♪ ♪ She never took her eyes off me ♪ - Okay, we have a problem here. RikRok has admitted
that the only eyewitness to this alleged infidelity never took her eyes off of the situation. Now, that's not great. In general, direct eyewitness testimony is not as reliable as you
might necessarily believe. Often, people forget,
often things are dark, and what has been shown
time and time again is that actual eyewitness
identifications can be suspect. The problem here is that
RikRok has identified that this person knew him beforehand. When you have someone who
knows the person in question, direct eyewitness testimony
can be very, very good. But, let's roll the tape back and take a look at this
supposed eyewitness testimony. (tape squeals backwards) ♪ All this time she was standing there ♪ ♪ She never took her eyes off me ♪ - It appears that she never got a direct view of this person. She only saw the back of RikRok which means that perhaps
this eyewitness testimony is not quite as damning
as it would first appear. It's entirely plausible that
it, in fact, was not him. ♪ It wasn't me ♪ - Except for all the admissions and stuff. ♪ I even had her in the shower ♪ ♪ It wasn't me ♪ ♪ She even caught me on camera ♪ - So we have a couple of problems here. Number one, this appears
to be security footage taken from the house itself
which could be a violation of the right to privacy if
you were to publicize that. We've seen all kinds of revenge porn cases where you can't use this kind of footage outside of the home itself. Who knows where this poor
woman got this footage from, but it may not in fact
be admissible in court and it's not clear that
everyone has consented to the photographs and
photography themselves. And it's unclear where
this is taking place, but if this is in fact in California, California is a two-party consent state which means that everyone
that is being video recorded would have to consent to that recording being admissible in court or to being publicized somewhere else. ♪ To be a true player
you've to know how to play ♪ ♪ If she say a night
convince her say a day ♪ ♪ Never admit to a word what she say ♪ ♪ And if she claim a yuh,
tell her, baby, no way ♪ - So, Shaggy is offering the advice that you have to convince this woman that night is day and that never admit-- ♪ Admit to a word what she say ♪ - (laughs) We're gonna get
to some other verses here that are even funnier. The bottom line is you get the
legal advice that you pay for and since RikRok has not
paid for this legal advice, that is exactly the
value of the legal advice that he is getting here. ♪ But she caught me on the counter ♪ ♪ It wasn't me ♪ ♪ Saw me kissin' on the sofa ♪ - Shut up.
♪ It wasn't me ♪ ♪ I even had her in the shower ♪ - Shut up.
♪ It wasn't me ♪ ♪ She even caught me on camera ♪ ♪ It wasn't me ♪ - Some of the best advice
that you can give to a client as an attorney is really
just be quiet, stop talking. Do not talk to the authorities,
don't talk to your friends, don't admit any particular
liability or wrongdoing, and here RikRok is making
the classic mistake of not only talking to everyone about it, but admitting it over
and over and over again. But, what a competent lawyer will do is to review all of the evidence. And once again, I have to point out that we have never seen RikRok's face in any of these potential scenes, so if we can in fact keep his
testimony out of this thing, then what we have here is
just circumstantial evidence. Let's see, the counter,
the sofa, the shower, and also on camera, so four
different potential situations. When you talk about
circumstantial evidence, or at least you hear
on TV or in the movies, it's always, oh this case is going nowhere because it's just circumstantial evidence. This is some really damning
circumstantial evidence. So the fact that we haven't
seen his face on camera probably doesn't matter all that much. We've seen a person in RikRok's house appear to act as if this is their house and they're having sex all over the place and, you know, just 'cause
you can't make a positive ID doesn't mean that this
circumstantial evidence isn't extremely, extremely strong. And, frankly, in general
circumstantial evidence tends to be pretty strong. DNA evidence is a type of
circumstantial evidence. So, yeah, RikRok is digging himself into a deeper and deeper legal hole here. Let's see if he can get out of it. ♪ She even caught me on camera ♪ ♪ It wasn't me ♪ ♪ She saw the marks on my shoulder ♪ ♪ It wasn't me ♪
- Oh no. - This might have been
the worst verse of all, if I were trying to defend RikRok here. Because he mentioned
not only did this woman see the entire situation, multiple times, over and over and over
again, including on camera, but she also saw the
marks on his shoulder. Now, why is that legally significant? Well, at least in California and in most states that I'm aware of, part of the discovery process, which is the pre-trial procedure, how you get all of the documents and various pieces of evidence that go into the trial itself, part of that process involves what's called a medical examination. It's a request for a medical examination. And so in the same way that you can request certain documents, in this case you would obviously request the video camera footage, whether that is in fact admissible or not, but you can also demand that the court make an order allowing you
to get the medical records or, in fact, make a medical
examination of the defendant. And in this case, if there
are marks on his shoulder from where this other woman
scratched him or bit him, as I'm told consenting
adults can do on occasion, the girlfriend or wife could
make a demand of the court and force RikRok to
stand for an examination to verify that those
marks are still there. All right, let's address
the elephant in the room. Is Shaggy's recommendation to
claim that, "It wasn't me," over and over and over
again good legal advice? - I don't know what to do. - Say it wasn't you. - I'm of two minds about this. It's obviously not good to go out and talk about your acts
of infidelity at all. It'd be better just to shut up. That being said, as a political defense, it might work better than a legal defense. What we have seen, at
least in this day and age, 15 or 20 years after Shaggy pioneered the it wasn't me defense
is that some politicians, who I absolutely won't name, have been able to use this defense, let's say, over and over and over again by doing something and
then either tweeting out or having other members of this particular
political administration go out and claim that it also wasn't them and that they didn't do the thing that they admitted to on
camera or tweeted out. But anyway, enough about
the (beep) administration. This is probably not great legal advice because if, for no other reason, it cabins you and boxes you
in into one particular story. Maybe there's an affirmative defense other than, "It wasn't me." (gentle chiming music) He tripped and fell into the shower. Or, he moonlights as a yoga instructor and was just helping this woman, a private client, obviously,
with her flexibility. And then, having worked up
a sweat in this Bikram yoga one-on-one session, he offered
the shower to wash off. She, being new to town, didn't
know how to use the shower, it's one of those really complicated, like three handle things,
so he took his shirt off while he was helping this woman next door. ♪ It wasn't me ♪ - What I'm saying is that
there are other defenses. (stammers) I don't know. I don't know.
(Patrick laughs) - [Patrick] This is exceeding
all of my expectations. (gentle chiming music) ♪ Time she was standing there ♪ ♪ She never took her eyes off me ♪ ♪ Wanna tell her that I'm sorry ♪ ♪ For the pain that I've caused ♪ - No, no, no. Don't do that.
♪ Listenin' to your reason ♪ ♪ It makes so sense at all ♪ - Absolutely do not do that. Do not admit liability. Unless, unless we have
already gone through the liability phase, he has been caught, he has been found and adjudicated to have engaged in this adultery,
then as a last hail Mary, perhaps you might be
able to get some clemency from the judge by admitting culpability and taking responsibility
for what you have done. You know, I think that
this particular music video is a great example of the fact that sometimes you don't
get to choose your clients. Sure, it would be great to deal with innocent people all the time, but the guilty also require
representation as well, that's part of what makes
our adversarial system work in the first place. But, you know, if it were up to me, I probably would not
choose Shaggy or RikRok to be my client in this
particular situation. I think my advice to both
of them would be settle. Of course, I'm not in trial
and, in fact, I'm on vacation, which is why I'm wearing
this incredibly soft polo from Mack Weldon, who I'm thrilled is the
sponsor of this video. And what you can't see, but out of frame are
the Mack Weldon shorts. In fact, here is a clip of me just walking along the beach
in my Mack Weldon shorts. (triumphant orchestral music) Of course, what Mack Weldon is most known for are their
incredibly comfortable boxer brief underwear, which I'm wearing, but I can't obviously show you. Well, actually, hold on. (strains) In fact, they're so comfortable, that I can pull them right off with minimal chafing and scaring. As you probably know, Mack Weldon is a men's
essential clothing brand known for its smart design
and premium fabrics. I love all of the stuff
that I have purchased from Mack Weldon with my own money. It's incredibly comfortable and it is great for when you are a lawyer trying to escape all of the
craziness in Washington, DC. (waves crashing) Mack Weldon sells some of the
most comfortable underwear, socks, shirts, shorts, pants, you name it, it's all great stuff. If you would like to great 20% off of your first purchase of Mack Weldon, go to the link in the description
or go to MackWeldon.com and use the promo code
legaleagle at check out. Using the URL really
helps out this channel. Again, to get 20% off your
first order of Mack Weldon, go to MackWeldon.com and use the promo code
legaleagle at checkout. So, do you agree with my
defense of Shaggy and RikRok? Leave your objections in the comments and check out my other playlist
of other lawyer reactions and other legal news over here where I will see you in court.
