- Hostile? I show you hostile. (punching)
(grunting) So funny story, that actually
happened to me in court and I also punched the witness. (cheerful music) Hey Legal Eagles, D. James
Stone here teaching you how to think like a lawyer so
you can crush law school. You know, growing up I
loved watching legal movies. There's nothing better
than seeing great lawyers stick it to evil corporations
or obstreperous witnesses. It's one of the reasons
that I went to law school and became a trial lawyer myself. And now that I've been an attorney at a major law firm for over 10 years, I thought I'd take some time and review some of the most famous legal
scenes from movie history. So let's dive right in. The first scene comes from
one of the most famous courtroom scenes of all
time in A Few Good Men. - Defense will be calling Airman Cecil O'Malley and
Airman Anthony Rodriguez. They were working the ground crew at Andrews at 2 a.m. on the 7th. - Your Honor, these men
weren't on the list. - Rebuttal witnesses, Your
Honor, are called specifically to refute testimony offered
under direct examination. - So this is actually fairly accurate. One of the things that
people don't know about trial is that there's so much you have to do before you go into the courtroom. It takes weeks and
sometimes months to prepare your pretrial filings and one
of the things that you have to do is you have to tell
the other side what evidence you're going to present and
what witnesses you're going to call and what Kevin Bacon is doing here is he's saying that
these witnesses were not on the disclosures from the defense and therefore they shouldn't be allowed. And in normal circumstances,
that would be the case. If they weren't disclosed then the judge would be correct in
disallowing those witnesses. However, there's an
exception to this which is where you are calling witnesses that are specifically
to rebut the evidence that was presented by the other side. You effectively didn't know
that you had to call these witnesses and they're only
there to rebut the evidence. So this is actually a part of trial law that you don't really
see in movies very much, hearkening back to all of
those pretrial filings. So this is actually fairly accurate. - I'll allow the witnesses. - This is ridiculous. - Colonel, a moment ago-- - Check the tower logs, for Christ's sake. - I would not expect a witness to opine from the stand like that. They usually are only allowed to speak when the question is presented to them. And Tom Cruise would have been
within his rights to object and to move to strike the
statement as nonresponsive. - Well we'll get to the
airman in just a minute, sir. A moment ago you said that you
ordered Lieutenant Kendrick to tell his men that Santiago
wasn't to be touched. - That's right. - And Lieutenant Kendrick
was clear on what you wanted? - Crystal. - So, hard for a witness to know what another person was thinking. He's opining about the mental
state of another person. That's probably speculation and probably wouldn't be allowed in most courts. - Any chance Lieutenant
Kendrick ignored the order? - Ignored the order? - [Daniel] Any chance he forgot about it? - No. - Any chance Lieutenant
Kendrick left your office and said the old man is wrong? - No. - When Lieutenant Kendrick spoke to you-- - At this point, there's
no foundation being laid as to how the Colonel would
know any of this information. It's possible that he would,
but you're not allowed to just go up there and ask someone to talk about things that other people did without laying the proper foundation that they have the personal knowledge to know what actually happened. You can't just say I gave an order and I know everyone is always
going to follow that order. Although I think that
that's sort of the point, the trap that Tom Cruise is laying here. - When Lieutenant Kendrick
spoke to the platoon and ordered them not to touch Santiago, any chance they ignored him? - You ever served in
an infantry unit, son? - No, sir. - So generally, witnesses are
not allowed to ask questions of the attorney when they're
on the witness stand. The attorney is the only one that's allowed to ask the questions here and Tom Cruise would be well within his rights to ask the judge to instruct the witness to answer the question. He's being nonresponsive. But at the same time,
he's employing a tried and true strategy of
giving the witness rope so that they can hang themselves. Here we know that Jack
Nicholson is going to make some crucial
admissions in just a second. And by giving him the
freedom to do these things that you wouldn't normally
do on the witness stand, he's falling into the trap
that Tom Cruise has laid here. - Yes, sir. - Are we clear?
- Are we clear? - Crystal.
- Crystal. - Colonel, I have just one more question before I call Airman O'Malley
and Airman Rodriguez. If you gave an order that
Santiago wasn't to be touched and your orders are always followed, then why would Santiago be in danger? - So technically this is
an argumentative question. The argument is integral
to the question itself. It's one of those questions that's like when did you stop beating your wife? Well that implies the argument that you were in fact beating your wife. So here it's the same sort of thing where he's laid this trap
and created an argument through the question
itself that Jack Nicholson can't really answer the question without falling into the argument
that's being made. So it's not technically a proper question. But by the same token, he's simply using the witness's words against them. And it's some nice legal trickery. - Why would it be necessary
to transfer him off the base? - Santiago was a substandard Marine. He was being transferred--
- That's not what you said! You said he was being transferred because he was in grave danger. - [Nathan] That's correct. - You said he was in
danger, I said grave danger. You said is there any other--
- I recall what I said. - I could have the court
reporter read back to you-- - I know what I said. I don't have to have it
read back to me like I'm-- - Then why do two orders? - So a couple of things going on here. Number one, you're not allowed
to interrupt the witness. Nor is the witness generally allowed to interrupt the attorney. That is sort of the definition
of badgering the witness and it's also muddying
up the record as well. Tom Cruise alludes to the stenographer who is typing away every
word that's being said. And that's generally standard
practice in almost any trial. And the attorneys are allowed to read back portions of the record to the witness to get their clarifying statement. However, the judge is not going to allow the attorney and the witness
to talk over each other because it's impossible
for the stenographer to record two voices at the same time and that simply muddies the record, which is the last thing you want because you have to have a pristine record in order to take an appeal from the trial. - Colonel. - Sometimes men take matters
into their own hands. - No sir, you made it
clear just a moment ago that your men never take
matters into their own hands. Your men follow orders or people die. So Santiago shouldn't have been in any danger at all,
should he have, Colonel? - That's more argument.
- You snotty little bastard. - [Ross] Your honor, I'd
like to ask for a recess. - I'd like an answer
to the question, judge. - The court will wait for an answer. - [Daniel] If Lieutenant Kendrick-- - Which is funny, because
he asks for an answer to the question he just
asked and then proceeds to immediately ask another question. If you have a good question
and you need an answer to it, you are allowed to petition the judge to instruct the witness to answer, but you shouldn't then
immediately ask another question. Lawyers actually do this all the time. They forget the sequencing
of the questions. This happens both in
court and in depositions. But it's not a good way
to lay a proper record. - Lieutenant Kendrick ordered
the code red, didn't he? Because that's what you told
Lieutenant Kendrick to do. - [Ross] Object!
- And when it went bad, you cut these guys loose!
- Your honor! - Kaffee, I'll hold you in contempt. - You had Markinson sign
a phony transfer order, and you doctored the log book!
- Your honor! Damn it, Kaffee! - You coerced the doctor,
now I'm asking you-- - [Judge] Consider yourself in contempt. - So you are not allowed to yell in court. That is completely improper. Also, it ruins your image
in front of the jury. Credibility is everything
in front of the jury. And if you are this hothead
who's yelling in court, you are going to ruin your
rapport with the jury. And so you're not going to
see a lot of yelling in court in the way that Tom Cruise and
Kevin Bacon are doing here. - Son, we live in a world that has walls and those walls have to be
guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and
you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of
not knowing what I know, that Santiago's death, while
tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence-- - So it's a great line and
man, it makes for a good movie. But you're never going to see these kind of Perry Mason moments in court. By the time you get to court, you've been preparing for weeks. Your attorney has gone
over every conceivable question that you are going to be asked. And they are going to help you
craft the testimony itself. And so trials are won and lost on the evidence and the documents. They are not won and lost
on assuming that the witness is going to go nuts on the
stand and go into a shouting match where they basically admit guilt. That's not going to happen. - I don't give a damn what
you think you are entitled to. - Did you order the code red? - [Nathan] I did the job-- - Did you order the code red? - You're goddamn right I did! - I have never once seen a
witness admit to the crime or the civil act that they are accused
of on the witness stand. Just doesn't happen. Somehow, witnesses know that
their ass is on the line and they're not willing
to admit to something that's against their interests. It just doesn't happen very often. The next scene comes from the classic legal movie 12 Angry Men. - What actually happened is this. The boy stayed home, had
another fight with his father, stabbed him to death, and left the house at 10 minutes after 12. He even remembered to wipe the
knife clean of fingerprints. Now are you trying tell me that this knife really fell through a
hole in the boy's pocket, someone picked it up off the street, went to the boy's house,
and stabbed his father with it just to test its sharpness? - No, I'm just saying it's
possible the boy lost his knife and that somebody else stabbed his father with a similar knife. It's just possible. - This is a really
interesting conversation amongst jurors in the jury room after the trial has concluded. A criminal trial has a very,
very high burden of proof. You have to prove beyond
a reasonable doubt. And you'll never get any judge to tell you what mathematically that's supposed to be. But a lawyer's shorthand would be that beyond a reasonable doubt
has to be between 95 and 99% sure before you're allowed
to convict someone. As opposed to the civil arena, which is where I have practiced, where you only have to be 51% sure. You have to show your case
is true more likely than not. So that's essentially 51% proven. But a criminal trial has a
much higher burden of proof. So this jury is debating
this very high level. Is a coincidence enough
to show reasonable doubt? And that's an open question and it's the question that
they should be debating. - Take a look at this knife. It's a very unusual knife. I've never seen one like it. Neither had the storekeeper
who sold it to the boy. Aren't you asking us to accept a pretty incredible coincidence? - I'm just saying a
coincidence is possible. - And I say it's not possible. - Where did that come from?
(many men talking) - Ooh, another knife that
looks exactly the same. - Where did you get it? - I went out walking for a
couple of hours last night. I walked through the boy's neighborhood. I bought that in a little pawn shop just two blocks from the boy's house. It cost $6. - So the jury is doing the right thing by debating whether the prosecution has proved their case
by a reasonable doubt. However, a jury is not
allowed to bring in additional evidence outside of what
was presented to them by the prosecution and
told to them by the judge. That's completely improper. This jury would probably be disbanded and a mistrial declared for this kind of act that goes beyond what
a jury is allowed to do. - It's against the law to buy
ourselves switchblade knives. - That's right, I broke the law. - And so you pulled a real bright trick. Now I suppose you'll
tell me what it proves. - However, the defendant in this case would have been well served if his lawyers had done what Peter Fonda does here and actually gone out to see where someone could buy this really unusual knife. Because it stands to reason that if it is a completely unique knife, then that is very probative of the idea that he committed this murder. However, if it's a very common knife, these jurors don't know
whether it's common or not, so they should have been
presented with evidence in the trial as to whether
the knife was common or not. But they should not have brought the knife into the jury room. - Maybe there are 10
knives like that, so what? - Maybe there are.
- Well what does it mean? You found another knife like it. What's that, the discovery
of the age or something? - You mean you're asking us to believe that somebody else did the stabbing with exactly the same kind of knife. - The odds are a million to one. - It's possible.
- But not very probable. - That is a classic distinction
in criminal law between something that is impossible
or probable or coincidental. You'll often hear on TV and movies that the evidence is circumstantial. Well the evidence is almost
always circumstantial. That's not a criticism of the evidence and it doesn't mean that circumstantial evidence can't be incredibly strong. The circumstantial evidence
here is probably pretty strong. It's unlikely that another murderer used a similar or exactly the same knife. Direct evidence is the opposite
of circumstantial evidence, which would be someone actually watching the event taking place, for example. Circumstantial evidence
can be very strong. Just because someone says the
evidence is circumstantial doesn't mean that it's not good evidence. And that's what the jury is debating here. - You know what's interesting? That he'd find a knife exactly
like the one the boy bought. - What's interesting about it? Interesting. - Well I don't know, I just
thought it was interesting. - There are still 11 of us
here who think he's guilty. - [Juror] Right, what do you think you're going to accomplish? You're not going to change anybody's mind. So if you want to be stubborn
and hang this jury, go ahead. The kid will be tried
again and found guilty. Sure as he's born. - He's probably right. - Okay, the next video comes from the classic legal movie,
And Justice for All. - And ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the prosecution is not
gonna get that man today. No. Because I'm gonna get him. My client, the honorable Henry T. Fleming, should go right to fucking jail. The son of a bitch is guilty!
(court roaring) - Okay, so Al Pacino has
had it with the system. He's the defense lawyer for this defendant and he has had it with the defendant. And he says my client is guilty. A couple of problems with this. Lawyers have a duty to their client. Every state has rules of professional conduct for the attorneys. And every defendant is
entitled to a zealous advocate. Al Pacino has basically
given away all of his duties to his client and basically conceded on his client's behalf
of the client's guilt. Now that may present some big problems for Al Pacino later on down the line. He's probably going to get disbarred. You are not allowed to take action that is contrary to the
benefit of your client. And if he had problems with his client, the proper remedy would
be to ask the court to remove him from the case and to give his client time to find
other representation. It is not proper to admit to the jury that your client is guilty. He'll likely get
disbarred for that action. So here Al Pacino has
violated many of the rules of professional conduct
and he's likely to be disbarred pretty quickly
after this outburst in court. - He's guilty! - Your honor!
(court roaring) - Mr. Kirkland!
- That man is guilty! - That man there, that man is a slime! He is a slime!
(many people yelling) If he's allowed to go free, then something really
wrong is going on here. - Mr. Kirkland, you are out of order! - You're out of order. You're out of order. The whole trial is out of order. They're out of order. - Yeah, so if you start
yelling at the judge like this and you violate the judge's instructions, which Al Pacino was
doing, you're very likely to be held in contempt of court. The judge has enormous leeway to keep the order in his courtroom. And one of the ways that he can do that is by sending attorneys to jail. So it's pretty rare, but
this is an instance where really contempt is probably in order. Al Pacino may go to jail here. And frankly, this
outburst is so prejudicial to the client that,
frankly, I think the judge would probably declare a mistrial, which means that he would
disband the jury and they would start the trial all over again
with a different jury pool. That man, that's so crazy.
(gavel pounding) (many people yelling)
- We're in a court room! - Depraved man raped and
beat that woman there and he'd like to do it again. He told me so. It's just for show, it's a show. - Come on. - Yep, there are the bailiffs.
- Let's make a deal! Let's make the deal!
- Taking Al Pacino away. Okay, the next scene comes
from The Dark Knight. - Sorry I'm late, folks. - Where were you? - Worried you'd have to step up? - Harvey, I know these briefs backwards. - Well then, fair is fair. Heads I'll take it, tails he's all yours. - Oh yeah, you want to flip
a coin to see who leads? - It's my father's lucky coin. As I recall, it got me
my first date with you. - I wouldn't leave something
like that up to chance. - I don't. I make my own luck. - [Bailiff] All rise. The honorable Judge Freel presiding. - So there often is some contention about who is going to handle cases. In a high profile case like this, almost always the senior
attorney would handle it. And so it's unlikely
that a junior prosecutor or district attorney would get to handle such a high profile case in this case. However, if the DA didn't show up, then the junior deputy would
probably have to handle it. - I thought the DA just played golf with the mayor, things like that. - Tee off's 1:30. More than enough time to put
you away for life, Sally. - Sometimes the head DA is not the best person to try a case. Sometimes they're just a political head who run the department rather than actually conduct the trials. - In Arkham, someone must have stepped up to run the so-called family. Is that man in this courtroom today? Could you identify him for us, please? - You win, counselor. It was me. - I have a sworn statement from you that this man, Salvatore Maroni, is the new head of the
Falcone crime family. - [Witness] Maroni? - In the criminal world, there aren't depositions beforehand. However, the police may take a statement or the DA may take a
statement from a witness. And you can use that statement to impeach the testimony of the witness on the stand. In the civil world, there are very likely to be depositions, which means that you will ask questions and answers. And if the witness deviates from what was in their deposition,
then you are allowed to bring that up to the
trier of fact and show that they cannot be trusted,
that they break their word. And that's sort of what is going on with the statement that
I have a sworn statement. I mean, you're not allowed to literally just hold up a sworn statement. You are allowed to enter it into evidence and to question the witness about it. But they're taking some liberties here. - Maroni? He's a fall guy. I'm the brains of the organization. (court room laughing) - [Judge] Order. - Permission to treat
the witness as hostile. - Granted.
- Hostile? I'll show you hostile!
(court room gasping) (punching)
(grunting) - So funny story, that actually
happened to me in court and I also punched the witness. I'm kidding. The next scene comes from Erin Brockovich. - Let's be honest here. $20 million is more money than these people have ever dreamed of. - Oh see, now that pisses me off. First of all, since the demurrer, we have more than 400 plaintiffs in. Let's be honest, we all know
there are more out there. - So that's interesting legal jargon. It's actually fairly accurate. This seems like a settlement discussion between the defense and the prosecution. And what Julia Roberts has said there is that after the demurrer,
they've gotten more plaintiffs. Which a demurrer is like
a motion to dismiss. The defendants tried to
dismiss the case out of hand, but they obviously lost. And since that time, the defense side has found even more plaintiffs. This is a class action lawsuit. So the more plaintiffs and
the more injured parties, potentially the more
recovery may be on the table. But by the same token, the
more members of a class, the less money every individual plaintiff is going to get if you
have to take the pie and spread it up into more payments. Then they're not likely
to get nearly as much. So $20 million may sound like
a lot, but if it's spread out amongst hundreds or thousands of people, which is what Julia Roberts
is saying is happening, they may not get very much personally into their own pockets. - They may not be the
most sophisticated people, but they do know how to divide and $20 million isn't shit
when you split it between them. - Erin. - Second of all, these people
don't dream about being rich. They dream about being
able to watch their kids swim in a pool without worrying
that they'll have to have a hysterectomy at the
age of 20 like Rosa Diaz, a client of ours, or have
their spine deteriorate like Stan Bloom, another client of ours. So before you come back here
with another lame ass offer, I want you to think real hard about what your spine is worth,
Mr. Walker, or what you might expect someone to pay you
for your uterus, Ms. Sanchez. Then you take out your calculator and you multiply that number by a hundred. Anything less than that
is a waste of our time. - So she is hinting at one
of the crucial elements of a civil lawsuit, which
is that it is supposed to provide compensation for injury
that you actually incurred. And in this particular case, there was, it's actually based on a
real case in California where a community's water was poisoned and as a result they
had very high incidences of cancer and other deleterious ailments. And so if you tried every
individual one of these cases, each individual might get
hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars, from a party if they were responsible for it. But because it's a class action,
they're all lumped together and Julia Roberts is saying, basically, you need to compensate every
single one of these people for the injuries that they incurred and not just provide what
seems like a large number in the aggregate when
you have to spread it out amongst a lot of different people. So it's a good negotiating tactic. It's a good way to anchor your position. And it's pretty common
amongst class actions. - By the way, we had that water brought in special for you folks. It came from a well in Hinkley. - That's hilarious. - I think this meeting is over. - Damn right it is. - So that's a fairly accurate depiction of what happens when you have
two sides negotiating amongst each other, when you have
just the parties themselves. It gets heated very often. And that's why it's so common
to have a neutral third party, a mediator come in and
mediate the two sides. I've used a mediator many times. It really helps advance the ball. The mediator can't force
anyone to do anything, but they can provide
some external validation and they can move things along. It's really money well spent
to make sure that you don't reach an impasse in a negotiation
like what happens here. - Good morning, good morning.
- Good morning. - Ed, Erin, what's this? - May I?
- Yep, go ahead. - Well you know what, Mr. Potter? We completely forgot
your birthday this year and seeing as how you've
been so good to me, it seemed a terrible oversight. So what Ed and I have been
doing the last few days is putting together a present for you. 634. They're all signed, every single one. - Holy shit. - Now don't go getting jealous, Theresa. We have something for you too. - This is actually a really
interesting part of the law that you almost never see
in movies and television. Erin Brockovich involves
a class action lawsuit, one that actually took place. And part of a class action
lawsuit is the idea that you have a small subsection of the total number of people that were harmed called representatives and they represent a class of people that have been harmed. And so you say that these
people are representative of the entire class and
therefore whatever compensation the representatives get should
be given to the entire class. And what Erin Brockovich
has done is she's gone out and she's gotten declarations from 600 people saying that they were harmed. And so effectively they have 600 people representing the class. And that's important
because defense attorneys try to defeat a class by showing that class representatives
don't represent the class, or their claims are unusual
or there are a whole number of reasons why you would
defeat a class action by disqualifying one or two class members. And often class actions only have a single class member
or maybe two or three. So Erin Brockovich has gone
out and she's gotten over 600 people to say that they want
to be members of the class, which really strengthens the class action lawsuit that they're trying to bring. So you don't hear about that part of class actions very often, but that is pretty accurate
to what plaintiffs' attorneys try and do in
the class action context. - How did you do this? - Well seeing as how I have
no brains or legal expertise and Ed here was losing all
faith in the system, am I right? - Oh yeah completely. No faith, no faith. - I just went out there and
performed sexual favors. 634 blowjobs in five days. I'm really quite tired. Woo. - So those are some of
my favorite legal movies. Some are more realistic than others, but it's always fun to see how Hollywood thinks lawyers react in real life. If you'd like to see
more lawyer reacts videos or hear about my law school experience or more legal horror
stories, please click on this short playlist that I put together. It includes the latest video I did on law school horror stories. I think you'll really like it. Please click subscribe
if you liked this video so that you never miss the next one. And otherwise, I'll see
you in the next video.
There's a whole podcast like this, called Opening Arguments. The main guy is the lawyer for God Awful Movies.
Iād like to see a lawyer or a law student react to Legally Blonde!
This is a great channel. A lot of interesting stuff are said here but I just wish they had 3 lawyers instead of only 1 because there are a lot of different things he might not have heard about.