- I love my brother. But Ted Kaczynski's
brother loved him, too. - Oh, what you thought that witnesses just showed up at trial having never practiced their testimony before? Oh, you sweet, sweet summer child. (upbeat music) So, I have a confession to make. This is not the first time I've seen this episode of "Better call
Saul!" called "Chicanery". It's the episode that involves
a bar disciplinary trial. And I saw this episode about a year ago, and ever since then, I haven't been able to
think about anything else. If you've seen it, you know that there are questions about whether
what Jimmy did is legal, and not only whether it's legal, but also whether the things that he does would actually work in this bar disciplinary hearing, and whether the evidence that he generates would be admissible in court. I think I finally know
how everything connects and whether it's accurate or not. So, let's dig in to "Better
Call Saul!", "Chicanery". - Charles thinks that Jimmy somehow took control of your documents while he was working on them at his home. He believes Jimmy transposed
the address numbers. - Transposed the numbers? How would he even do that? - Charles contends that Jimmy took the documents pertaining
to the Rosella branch, and while Charles was indisposed, photocopied and doctored them. - That's pretty Baroque. - Okay, so this is the
background to the episode, and it is true that under the
rules of professional conduct, if a lawyer realizes that a
document has been fabricated, they have an obligation to
tell the tribunal or the court that it has been doctored,
and come forward with that. Now, it's also just
good client management. Kim is trying to do the right thing here. This is a PR issue for the client, and it might reflect poorly
on the client itself. - [Mr. Alley] Okay, this is it. We can run without lights and mics. We'll collect all cell phones and hold them for the
duration of your testimony. - Okay, so a reminder here,
this is not a normal trial. This is a disciplinary hearing by the bar, so it's a question of whether Jimmy gets to keep his bar license. And of course his brother, Chuck, claims to be allergic to electricity so they're turning off all
the lights to accommodate him. This is probably going to
be more like an arbitration, less formal, but still
has the force of law here. But look, I'm making assumptions here. I don't know exactly what
the state bar of New Mexico would be doing under these circumstances. - How are you feeling, Chuck? - I'll muddle through. - Because this is a lot to ask, and if you're not up to it, just throwing this out there, maybe you don't need to testify at all. - No, I do. I'm the only person who can adequately explain the context of that tape. Otherwise, the defense
will tear it to shreds. - It's already a solid case. We have Jimmy's statement from the pre-prosecution diversion. There's my testimony
and the private eye's. Maybe there's no need to put you through the ringer like this. - Okay, so a couple of things here. Number one, the tape here is that Chuck recorded Jimmy basically confessing to the crimes at issue here
of doctoring the evidence. So, it shows one of the reasons why Jimmy should be disbarred. But another thing that's going here is something that does actually happen, which is that you can often
gild the lily in trial. Some witnesses are going
to be better than others. And if you already have a rock solid case, and you have a witness who
doesn't play well on the stand, or there are other issues that are going to confuse the jury or the judge, then it's best not to
put that witness forward because it's just going to detract from your already strong case. And of course, Chuck,
isn't listening to that, and I don't think his law
partner can stop him here, but we know that this
is also a foreshadowing that he is not the best
witness to tell the story and bad things are going to happen because he refuses to not take the stand. - [Mr. Alley] In the
matter of James M. McGill, the state bar intends
to prove the following violations of the ethical code. 16-102, engaging in conduct
the lawyer knows is criminal. Mr. McGill certainly
knew that breaking down his brother's door was criminal behavior. 16-804, committing a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer's honesty or trustworthiness as a lawyer. Any reasonable person would agree that assaulting another lawyer in his own home reflects badly on Mr. McGill's
fitness as an attorney. - I think those are the actual rules of professional conduct. I think that is also
the case in New Mexico. Certainly, the section numbers correspond with the ABA model professional codes. Not surprisingly, lawyers cannot engage in manifestly illegal conduct, and they can't engage in conduct that reflects on the honesty of
themselves and the profession. So, I think those are the actual things that Jimmy would be charged with in exactly this circumstance. That's great attention
to detail right there. - Mr. McGill broke into his brother's home and destroyed an audio cassette which contained a
recording of a conversation between himself and his
brother, Charles McGill. We will show that this recording was evidence in an ongoing legal case. The state bar believes the once
we have presented the facts, the committee will agree that disbarment is warranted for James McGill. Thank you very much. - Okay, so assuming that this is an opening statement in a trial, and yeah, there are
going to be differences given that this is a bar
disciplinary hearing. I would have liked to have heard more about the facts that the state, or the state bar, is going to prove here. They focused on the law here, that is relevant, and that
law appears to be spot on, and probably makes sense
in a disciplinary hearing, but at the same time, he is using the language
of an opening statement that they are going to prove these things that we're not arguing anything here. We're just giving an opening statement about what the facts and
the law are going to be. And that's pretty accurate. - I'm Kim Wexler,
co-counsel with James McGill for the defense. You've already read Mr. McGill's
pre-prosecution statement. We don't dispute he broke
into his brother's house. An act he regrets deeply, but there is another side to this story. One not about calculation or ill intent, but about two brothers whose relationship after years of strain finally broke. We believe that after you
have the complete picture, you'll understand James McGill is an asset to our legal community and he should remain a full member of it in good standing. - Okay, another super short, very surgical opening statement from Kim here. Again, I would have liked her
to focus on more of the facts. They've opened the question about the relationship between the two brothers and how that colors this whole thing. How could this crime be
turned from something that's clearly illegal into something that is understandable and forgivable because of the brothers' relationship? Frankly, if Jimmy is on the stand, he can lay a lot of that foundation. - Mr. Alley, call your witness. - [Howard] Bang! Bang! Bang! Then, he kicked down the door. Jimmy was very agitated. He was shouting. He demanded Charles turnover the evidence he'd been collecting- - [Kim] Objection! We haven't established the
tape is evidence of anything. The defense has only acknowledged
it as a piece of property. - [Howard] Allow me to rephrase. - I love that Hamlin is actually adding some drama because he is
a seasoned trial lawyer. So, he does know what works and what doesn't work on the stand. This objection that Kim has made, basically the judge will
smack that down and say, look, I understand that this
is the witness's opinion and I'll take it for what it's worth. And so they're not going to
strike the testimony here. They're just going to say, be careful, try not to editorialize
or opine from the stand. And that's exactly what
the witness then does. When you make an objection like this, if you're really worried about
the particular testimony, you have to ask the judge, or in this case the panel, to strike that testimony from the record. Otherwise, it stays there, and everyone is allowed
to rely on that testimony. So, anytime you see an objection, if they're not getting
rid of the testimony that shouldn't have come
out in the first place, it was a completely ineffectual act. - [Howard] Jimmy demanded
an audio cassette in Charles's possession, which Jimmy proceeded, with the help of an iron
fireplace implement, to pry from Charles's his desk. He then broke the cassette into pieces and went on to confront his brother. - [Mr. Alley] What happened after the defendant smashed this tape? - It's a great direct
examination question. And on direct, you're not
allowed to ask leading questions. You are on cross. And what happened next is perfect. You're just teeing it up for the witness to explain away everything
that the witness can say. And when you have a great
witness like Hamlin here, just let them do the talking. - What was your opinion of him then? - I thought he had a lot of get up and go. He was a hard worker. - You had a nickname for him, didn't you? - [Howard] Charlie Hustle. (chuckles) - So interesting Easter egg here. This isn't a legal thing, but that is the nickname for Pete Rose, who was banned from baseball
for betting on games that he was a player in and a manager of. It's an interesting nickname
to give Jimmy there. - Could you speak to the terms of Charles's leave of absence? - You know I can't. It was an FMLA leave. Anything more is confidential. - Okay, spot on. The FMLA is the Family
and Medical Leave Act that allows people to take medical leave, and the employer, under
most circumstances, is required to allow them
to come back to their job. There's some exceptions. If that job has been completely
removed, for example, then there's no obligation to
bring them back to that job. But that is exactly what would happen in a situation like this. And the employer is
under an obligation not to disclose the reason for
the employee taking the leave. - At this time, the state bar would like to enter exhibit five into evidence. We asked that Charles
McGill's recording be played. - I'm respectfully renewing my objection. The probative value of
playing this exhibit is outweighed by how prejudicial it is. - All due respect to Ms. Wexler, but the state bar feels
this is fundamental to hear. We don't wanna leave any question as to the intentions of both parties. - Ms. Wexler, we already
ruled this was fair game when we denied your motion to suppress. - I'll add the rough and tumble of your client's conduct aside, we need to know whether one lawyer attempted to tamper
with another's evidence. - Okay, this is great
for a couple of reasons. Number one, the objection
that Kim is making is a real objection. Under the Rules of Evidence, if a piece of evidence
has a prejudicial value that outweighs its probative value. In other words, how relevant
it is to the proceedings, then, under certain circumstances, the judge or the tribunal can
rule that it's inadmissible because it's just say too
inflammatory or too prejudicial, but what's great about this, and what you rarely ever see on TV, is that these issues of
very, very important pieces of evidence are almost never
dealt with in the trial itself. There's almost always pre-trial briefing. And here, there was pre-trial briefing. They moved to suppress it. That motion was denied. And so, effectively they
already dealt with this issue. And almost always on TV, there's this back and forth
between these objections, and sometimes it's heard in
the presence of the jury. In reality, in real life,
it's done in a very dry way. You file a motion to
either admit the evidence, or to prevent it from coming in, the judge rules on it ahead of time. And you save everyone the heartache of going back and forth
on the day of the trial. It's amazing! You never see that on TV. - I love my brother. But Ted Kaczynski's
brother loved him, too. - Oh, what, you thought that witnesses just showed up at trial having never practiced their testimony before? Oh, you sweet, sweet summer child. - [Jimmy] Kim deserves Mesa
Verde, not you, not HHM! She earned it and she needs it! I did it to help her, but I honestly didn't think
it would hurt you so bad. I thought you'd just say, "Oh crap, I made a mistake," and go on with your life
like a normal person, but all no wishful thinking! - All right, so obviously this raises huge ethical implications for
Kim representing Jimmy here. I'm gonna assume that representing someone in a bar disciplinary hearing is basically an act of a lawyer and they're bound by the same ethical issues, and she's a material witness here. She is one of the reasons that this whole situation has come to fruition. It's a little crazy for
her to be counsel here, despite the fact that she's
a law partner with Jimmy, and maybe especially because
they're law partners. It's pretty improper for her to be counsel for Jimmy in this particular situation. - [Charles] Jimmy, you do realize you just confessed to a felony? - [Jimmy] I guess. But you feel better, right? Besides it's your word against mine. - So yeah, look, tampering with evidence to try and obstruct an investigation or to interfere with another court case, clearly, clearly illegal, and New Mexico is a
one-party consent state. So, it's probably okay for Chuck to have recorded this conversation in which he is participating. Bad evidence for Jimmy. - Excuse me. - Sorry. - That's yours. - Huell! Everyone loves Huell! Huell is the best. So, we know that he has
bumped into Charles. He has, of course, planted something on Charles's person that will
become relevant later on. This is also incredibly
relevant for the crazy legal analysis that I had to do to figure out what's going on here. Because number one, he's made physical contact with Charles, which raises the issue of whether that is its own crime of
assault and or battery, and whether planting
something on Chuck's person can be admissible evidence. We'll get to that in a second. But those are the kinds of legal issues that we have to think about here. And it's going to spiral
out of control really fast. - I had a suspicion my brother had tampered with documents in
a case I was working on. - Now, why would he do that? It doesn't sound particularly brotherly. - I believe it was his hope that the tainted documents
would cause the client to become disillusioned
with my representation, and return to their previous attorney- - Object! Object! Yeah, you're not going to be allowed to speculate as to the kind of motive or internal thinking that
Jimmy's going on here. - [Charles] Which I should note
is precisely what happened. - Objection. - Finally! - I'm not saying Ms. Wexler
knew what Jimmy was doing or had any involvement, I'm only stating that it happened. - But the witness can't keep testifying, if you're objecting to the court here. This happens a lot in TV. If there's an objection, the witness has to stop. And if you win that objection, you need to go back and say that you move that the testimony
be stricken from the record. Otherwise, it's on the
record and it happened. - My brother, whatever
else can be said of him, can be quite clever. Did an excellent job
of covering his tracks. - Objection. The witness has admitted there's
no corroborating evidence this supposed crime even occurred. - I would like to hear what he has to say. - Okay, this is called
the Speaking Objection, and the problem with that is that while some of the rationale
that she's using makes sense, she's also not giving them a reason under the rules of evidence, why they cannot hear this evidence. And the reason is it's pure speculation. He has admitted that he doesn't
have corroborating evidence. You're not allowed to testify to that. And the judge, shouldn't be saying, "I want to hear what he says." Now, again, this is something
that's like a bench trial, something that's like an arbitration. You see it all the time. They say, look, I'll hear the testimony. I understand that he might
be purely speculating, but I want to hear that speculation. It might be based on something. And I am smart enough to know whether I can trust that testimony or not. You see that a lot in
arbitrations or bench trials. - All due respect, but you do sound somewhat
unhinged on the recording. - Yes, I understand that, but what you heard was theater,
a performance, play acting. I exaggerated the symptoms of my disease to extract the truth. - I don't think that that's relevant here. They are kind of opening the
door to Jimmy and Kim here to probe the veracity of it. That's a dangerous gamble. - Can we talk about your
disease for a moment? I'd like everybody here to
be on the same page about it. - Of course, it is sometimes
referred to as EHS, electromagnetic hypersensitivity. I describe it as an acute
allergy to electromagnetism. - It's not a common condition, is it? - I know it sounds strange, I do. But 30 years ago, no one had
heard of peanut allergies. - Okay, so this is really important because generally in the law, there is this idea that
you take your victim as you find them. And often this is lumped in
with the Eggshell Skull theory where let's say you punch someone and they happen to suffer
from a bone disease that gives them brittle bones, or a skull that is so thin
as to be like an eggshell. Well, the mere fact that you didn't intend for some horrific injury to come as a result of a mere punch, given the special
circumstances of the victim, it doesn't matter. You take your victim as you find them. And that's really relevant
to the some things that we're going to get to because Chuck believes
he has this disease. And in some sense that matters, whether that disease is true or not. And in other senses, it matters only whether Chuck believes he has this disease or not, and his subjective reaction to it. That will become relevant
in just a second. - I love my brother. There's nothing malicious in Jimmy. He has a way of doing the worst things for reasons that sound almost noble. But what I know for sure, is that the law is too
important to be toyed with. It's mankind's greatest achievement. The rule of law, the idea
that no matter who you are, your actions have consequences. - Preach, baby, preach! - I have some questions. Like the recorder, it must have hurt like hell for you to touch that. - There was a degree of
discomfort, that's true. - And where did you hide it? I mean, the sound's pretty clear so it wasn't in the
couch cushions, was it? - Tucked under a space
blanket out of sight. - Wow, so there's no
chance I would see it. Not with the state your place
was in, isn't that right? - [Charles] I suppose. - Would you like to set the scene for the disciplinary committee? Tell them, you know, what your house looked like at the time of the recording. - So, Jimmy's asking a combination of open-ended and leading questions. And I remind you, that
on cross examination, you are allowed to ask leading questions. It's only on direct examination where you're not allowed
to ask leading questions. - I covered most of the walls with foil scrim craft insulation. I also hung a number of space blankets. Compact Mylar sheets. They insulate and protect against mild electromagnetic radiation. - Right, so shiny insulation
and space blankets all over the walls and the ceiling. It was like being inside of a disco ball. - Do you have a point? - Okay, now Jimmy is
just flat out testifying. He's turns to the tribunal
and he just starts saying what his own experience is like. You can't do that on cross examination. He's a witness here. If he wants to take the stand and testify as to what
he saw and experienced, he's going to be able to do that. - Usually, it's a perfectly normal house. - You think your house is normal. Can I call your attention to exhibit nine? This is your house, right? - Yes. - Exposed wires. There's a camp stove. - Okay, so putting aside the fact that Jimmy is basically
testifying right now, I find this hilarious because every trial has these exhibit binders. And again, you're going to take care of most of the evidentiary
stuff ahead of time, so it's pretty normal
for all of the exhibits to already be in evidence. And we tend to carry these boxes of white three-ring binders, or black three-ring binders
containing everything. If he had planned this out, he probably would have
blown up these pictures on like a three by five
presentation board, but spur of the moment
he wants to confront the witness with these trial exhibits. Totally spot on hilarious
the attention to detail here. And on top of that, yes,
he's sort of testifying, but he would be able to
make the exact same points by simply saying, "Is this your house?" "Do you recognize this
as a true and correct picture of what was in your house?" And, "Is it true as
depicted in this photo, that there was exposed wire?" "Is it true that blah, blah, blah?" You just simply confront the witness to verify all of these things so you get the same effect of being able to show the tribunal all of these photos. So, yeah, he's testifying
here, but in reality, what he would realistically
do with this witness is not that far off. It's great. - Right, so with the lights
out, you don't feel them? - [Charles] If the
current's not flowing, no. - Oh, sorry about the exit signs. I guess they couldn't kill those for you. - Well, they're not drawing much current, and they're far away. Intensity drops off with distance per the inverse square law. - Whoa, inverse square? I'm not a physicist. Could you dumb that down a shade for me? - The farther away it is, the stronger the source needs
to be to have an effect. - All right, Huell is back. That'll become relevant in just a second. Now, things are about to get good. Oh my god, I think I figured it out! I can't wait to untangle this web again. I might've seen this before. - Got it, got it. So, if I had a small battery, say from a watch or something, and I got it close to you, close to your skin, you'd know? - [Charles] I would feel it, yes. - Okay, laying the foundation that a battery is something that he would feel and he would react to. - Can you feel more current coming from any particular direction right now? From that back wall? Or from over there? Or up through the floor? Can you tell us where the
nearest source is right now? - Jimmy, do you have
something in your pocket? - No, he laid the trap! He laid the trap! - Yes, I do, as a matter of fact. My cell phone. From this distance, you should feel it, and you don't, do you? - Mr. McGill, you were warned to leave your electronics outside. - It's a trap! It's a trap! So, starting out here, I don't think that there's any issue with him using his cell phone as a prop. You use demonstratives
in trial all the time. You know, you can generate testimony, through the witness on the stand, and the fact that it's his own cell phone, it's unorthodox, sure, but so is this medical ailment. And in reality, you can
get a medical examination through discovery if this
was an actual court case. So, I think so far so good. This is akin to in "My Cousin Vinny", when Joe Pesci is holding up two fingers to test the eyesight of a witness. - How many holding up now? - Four. - I don't think there's anything
untoward going on so far. - What do I have to do to prove it to you? - I don't know, Chuck. Could you reach into your breast pocket and tell me what's there? - What now? - [Jimmy] Can you tell
the court what that was? - It's a battery! It was on him the whole time. - Do you recognize that man in back? His name is Huell Babineaux. He's on our witness list. You bumped into him in the stairway. He'll testify he planted
this fully-charged battery on you over an hour and a half ago. - [Huell] Hour and 43 minutes. - [Jimmy] An hour and 43 minutes. Thank you, Mr. Babineaux. And you felt nothing. - Here's where things
get really, really dicey. Where do I start? I'm just, I'm just so excited. There's so much stuff going on here. First of all, the issue
of Jimmy testifying. Okay, yeah, all right. So, Jimmy is sort of testifying here, but I think what you would assume would happen is that
the state would object. And what Jimmy's actually
doing is he isn't testifying so much as he's making a proffer. He actually says, "This is Huell Babineaux. He will testify." He says something perspective in there. He's saying, I'm not offering
this into evidence right now, but in the future, this person will testify to this, and here's why it's relevant. Lawyers do proffers all the time, often in response to an
objection of relevance. So yes, he is technically
testifying himself, but he's only testifying into the things that this witness, Huell Babineaux, will testify to in the future. And I'm sure if this disciplinary
hearing goes forward, he will make you Babineaux
take the stand and testify to all the things that
have happened right now. So, it's conflating a
couple of things together, but it's not that crazy. It's a proffer, but now is the secondary
issue of did Jimmy commit a crime to elicit this testimony? I think there's an argument that he did because there is the crime of battery, which is also a tort where you engage in some
sort of harmful or offensive contact to another person. Now, harmful or offensive
doesn't just mean like punching someone or
stabbing them with a knife. But it also includes things
that are singularly offensive only to the victim themselves. Contact that's highly offensive to another's unusually sensitive sense, and the actor knows that that contact is highly offensive to them. So, when you're dealing with someone that is incredibly unique, the assailant has to know that it's highly offensive to them. Arguably, that's the case here. Jimmy knows that Chuck feels this way, regardless of whether it's true or not that he actually suffers
from this condition. So, in the restatement
of torts, for example, they give a couple of
examples of things like this. Serving pork to someone who doesn't eat pork for religious reasons, it's not going to hurt them, but it might be highly offensive to them. Or they give another example of someone who is deathly afraid of butterflies. Well, the butterfly's
not going to hurt them, but if you put a butterfly on
someone and they freak out, well, you've just committed battery if you know that they are
terrified of butterflies. And it generally doesn't matter if the victim didn't know
about it ahead of time, the damage is done when
they find out about it. The person who ate pork didn't
know that they ate pork, but if you tell them about it, well, then they have
suffered the emotional distress of the battery,
even if it's after the fact. On the other hand, there was an argument that this malady is not a real thing, and therefore, he didn't suffer anything, and a reasonable person
wouldn't suffer that either. I don't know. I could go either way on this. And as for whether it's admissible in front of this tribunal, remember this is more
informal than a normal court, but man, this one is still a tough one because we don't want
defense attorneys accosting a material witness and
planting things on them for what is obviously
highly probative evidence, such a great scene. I absolutely still love it, regardless of whether
it would work or not. It's just, it's just really good. (laughs) - You think this is bad. This, this chicanery. He's done worse. That billboard. Are you telling me that a man just happens to fall like that? No, he orchestrated it, Jimmy! He defecated through a sun roof! - Who doesn't love a
great Perry Mason moment? This episode is just so good! (upbeat music) So, now I have to give this episode of "Better Call Saul" a
grade for legal realism. (gavel bangs) On the one hand, they're
taking some liberties here. We've got people testifying. You have people engaging in things that normally wouldn't
be allowed in trial. But on the other hand, this is a disciplinary hearing. Things are going to be more informal and they really paid very close attention to the actual ethical rules for lawyers and things like FMLA. And they were making
reasonably good objections. Even though this caused me to
pull my hair out for months, I think this is one of
the greatest episodes of TV lawyering of all time, and I'm going to give it an A minus. Just don't engage in
this kind of chicanery as a real lawyer. Now, this video isn't over. I had to cut this down almost in half because I had so many things to say, like I said, I really loved this episode. But lucky for you, you can watch the full extended
version over on Nebula, which you now get with a huge discount when you get it with Curiosity Stream. Because sometimes having
a 50-minute reaction video to a 45-minute TV show doesn't
actually work on YouTube, which is why my creator friends and I teamed up to build our own
platform where creators don't need to worry about demonetization or the dreaded algorithm. As you know, this
platform is called Nebula and we're partnering with Curiosity Stream and not only are the Nebula
versions ad-free and extended, but they also get released early before the YouTube versions, because Nebula is a place
where we can experiment with content and put things out that
we couldn't put on YouTube. And it features lots of YouTube's top educational-ish creators, like MKBHD, Lindsay Ellis,
and Philosophy Tube. And we're thrilled to be
partnering with Curiosity Stream because they're the go-to source
for the best documentaries and long-form educational
content on the internet. And now, they have an
entire section devoted to unsolved mysteries and crime. If you like my videos, you will love the stuff
on Curiosity Stream. And we worked out a deal
where if you sign up for Curiosity Stream with
the link in the description, you also get a Nebula
subscription for free. And to be clear that Nebula
subscription is not a trial, it's free for as long as you're
a Curiosity Stream member. And right now, Curiosity
Stream is offering 26% off of their annual plans. That's less than $15 per year for both Curiosity Stream and Nebula. So, if you click on the
link in the description, you'll get both Curiosity
Stream and Nebula for 26% off, or you can go to
CuriosityStream.com/LegalEagle. It's a great way to support this channel and educational content directly for less than $15 for the entire year. So, just click on the
link in the description. Plus clicking that link
really helps out this channel. So, do you agree with my analysis? Leave your objections in the comments and tell me what TV show I should do next. And check out this playlist over here with all of my other real law reviews, including "The Simpsons", "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia",
and "My Cousin Vinny". So, click on this playlist
or I'll see you in court.
love this channel. i originally found it looking for breakdowns of better call saul. i hope he does more episodes on the show!
This guy looks like a handsome Pixar character. I still can't quite tell if this is real video or CG.
I love how excited he was about this episode. I wanted to see him break this down the day the episode aired. Probably my favorite Legal Eagle episode to date.
Oh man I've been wanting this vid since I saw him do the pilot.
Not surprised he gave such a high score for legal realism. This show is the closest thing to "real lawyering" we are gonna see on TV. Love how he explained the cell-phone-battery-in-the-pocket scheme. Always wondered if that was admissible.
Love this channel! So happy he’s revisiting BCS.
I've never seen Legal Eagle so impressed and enjoy a review so much apart from My Cousin Vinny. Just goes to show you how good Vince Gilligan and his crew are.
Chicanery is one of the best episodes of the series and it barely sacrificed any legal realism.
TBH having the trial episode be that was a smart decision because it's something most lawyers don't ever encounter and thus won't really question much.
He's really good, I think he's been posted here before. Validates points of law, balanced with the drama of the show. The benefit of a law show imo is demonstrating how actual thinking works irl too, how to draw nuanced, informed conclusions, in a brave new world transformed into dumbed-down tired tropes of anti-heroes and social media Like® culture. This show is a refresh on that – Kim, not Kardashian – Wexler, not Walter. So far.
One thing: I've questioned since the airing of this episode, S3.5 in 2017, and no one has addressed (please weigh in, LE) HOW or WHY Jimmy's (Mike's 'handyman') photos of Chuck's house were admissible as evidence, let alone used to cross examine Chuck – who of all people – should have challenged or at least, questioned, how these photos were surreptitiously obtained. I hoped that whatever provision was accorded to Chuck for the one-way privacy law for audio recording of evidence should also be applied for the photographic recording of evidence of the same home for the same case. As Legal Eagle pointed out, NM has a one-way law there. They used this same law to quash Kim's motion to attempt to exclude the tape in the hearing as evidence... but crickets when it comes to the photos. I don't get that.
Why does this matter? It leads me to believe Howard enabled the photos into evidence to undermine Chuck's credibility since his pleas to NOT testify had no effect on Chuck, while keeping his own hands clean. And Chuck trusted Howard. Howard's face has been in shadow whenever he's in a discussion with Chuck about taking Jimmy down. Mark it, Howard will be revisited in general for his shadowy precipitating part in Chuck's demise. His confession of guilt for any indirect, or lack of, action, will come back to haunt him and the final storylines of S6. Can't wait to hear LE on Howard, someone he'd consider his peer.