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(sword clangs) - I wish had enough poison
for the whole pack of you.
I would gladly give my life to watch you all swallow it.
- I haven't seen that in court,
but generally, that's not a great strategy.
(cheerful music)
Hey Legal Eagles, it's time to think like a lawyer.
Today we are covering the trial
of Tyrion from Game of Thrones.
Like a lot of you out there,
I am waiting for the series finale.
But in the meantime, let's take a look back
at one of the more famous repercussions
of the Purple Wedding, which is the trial
of Tyrion Lannister, who is framed
for the murder of King Joffrey.
(Joffrey gasps)
- He's choking!
- It's been a long time since I've seen this,
so I'll be looking at it with fresh eyes,
but it'll be interesting to see
how realistic the trial scene is
compared to American modern jurisprudence.
As always, leave your comments in the form
of an objection, which I will either sustain or overrule,
and stick around until the end of the video,
where I give Game of Thrones a grade for legal realism.
So, without further ado, let's dig in
to the trial of Tyrion Lannister.
So, here Tyrion is being held in captivity
by the equivalent of the police in King's Landing.
To recap, King Joffrey was killed on his wedding day
by some sort of gruesome poison,
and because of many of the statements that Tyrion made
to and about the king, he is being accused
of actually killing King Joffrey,
which, of course, is not in fact true.
Nonetheless, he's being held in captivity
and is being accused of the crime of regicide.
All right, the sort of Game of Thrones
equivalent of the perp walk, being walked into court.
- [Man] King slayer!
- So, this is a pretty unusual court.
All of the people in the audience,
generally called the gallery, almost always you
have it being perpendicular to the
actual place where the judge sits.
Here, you have these long rows
going toward where the judge is going to sit.
This doesn't make a whole lot of sense as a courtroom.
Obviously, this is a great hall where usually
official business is conducted.
But this doesn't make a whole lotta sense as a courtroom.
Generally speaking, the accused don't have
to wear handcuffs when they're in court,
unless there is some known reason
why they have to be restrained,
like they are known to have outbursts in court
or they jump across council table
and try and attack the judge, the prosecutor,
which has been known to happen.
But otherwise, for obvious reasons,
you don't want to poison the mind of the jury
and see this person as some sort
of animal that has to be chained up.
You want them to get a fair hearing.
So generally, criminal defendants are not
locked up when they're in court.
You would generally rise when the judge arrives as well.
- I, Tommen of the House Baratheon,
First of My Name, King of the Andals and the First Men
and Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, do hereby
recuse myself from this trial.
Tywin of the House Lannister, Hand of the King
and Protector of the Realm, will sit as judge in my stead.
- So, in the US, you have a constitutional right
to a jury trial, and that jury
must be made up of your peers.
Now, query in the sort of royal house
who would be the peers that would sit
in judgment over a nobleman like Tyrion Lannister.
But you can also see that it is a clear conflict of interest
for one of the three members of the panel or jury
that's going to decide your fate
to be a member of your own house.
Here you can imagine prejudice going both ways.
There could be prejudice because his father
may want him to face execution
because of how much he loved Joffrey, his grandchild.
Or you could imagine that he could get leniency
because he's a member of the same family.
- Tyrion of the House Lannister,
you stand accused by the queen regent of regicide.
Did you kill King Joffrey?
- No.
- Did your wife, the Lady Sansa?
- Not that I know of.
- That's a fair response.
He may not know whether his wife committed homicide or not.
You would have to ask her.
So that would be speculation for him
to talk about whether his wife killed King Joffrey.
- How would you say he died, then?
- Choked on his pigeon pie.
- So you would blame the bakers?
- Or the pigeons.
Just leave me out of it.
- I should note here that there are already
several problems from an American law perspective.
Number one, if this was in America,
Tyrion would be given the right
against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment,
which would allow him to not have to testify
against himself in a criminal proceeding.
And already, the adjudicator has asked him several questions
that could be incriminating towards his defense,
and he would have the right not to take the stand
and not to have to answer those questions.
But I don't get the sense that
Tyrion could have avoided those questions if he wanted to.
Additionally, Tyrion would have a Sixth Amendment right
to an attorney being present throughout this entire ordeal
because we don't expect members of the public
to be able to defend themselves in a court of law
without the help of an advocate like a lawyer.
And here, he has no attorney to act as an intermediary,
and he makes these statements that are somewhat inflammatory
and could get him into trouble.
- The crown may call its first witness.
- Once we got King Joffrey safely away
from the mob, the Imp rounded on him.
He slapped the king across the face
and called him a vicious idiot and a fool.
(audience gasps)
It wasn't the first time the Imp threatened Joffrey.
Right here in this throne room,
he marched up those steps and called our king a halfwit,
compared His Grace to the Mad King
and suggested he'd meet the same fate.
When I spoke in the king's defense,
he threatened to have me killed.
- Okay, so you might assume that these statements
by Tyrion qualify as hearsay and therefore
can't be used against Tyrion in a court of law.
However, it's important to know
that hearsay is an out-of-court statement used
for the truth of the matter asserted.
They are trying to establish that he actually
said these things and had a motive to kill King Joffrey.
So that is sort of the truth of the statement at issue,
that he thought the king was a vicious idiot and a fool.
So the question is, can those statements come in?
Well, one of the exceptions to the hearsay rule is
generally the admission by a party opponent
or a party admission exception to the hearsay rule.
And under that rule, you are allowed to use hearsay
statements where the statement is ostensibly made by a party
to the litigation or a party, in this case,
to the criminal proceeding, and is adverse to that party.
And here they are using a statement of Tyrion's,
who is a party to the litigation.
He is the defendant, and it is adverse to his interests.
So that statement is allowed to come in.
Generally, the admission by a party exception exists
because you can cross-examine the declarant
because they're a party to the proceedings.
The big problem, at least historically,
with hearsay is that it's an out-of-court statement
where you could not cross-examine the declarant.
But where the declarant is available,
you are allowed to bring in their
out-of-court statements through other witnesses.
So in this particular case, I think the party admission
exception would apply, and they would be able
to use Tyrion's statements against him in this proceeding.
- Oh, why don't you tell them what Joffrey was doing?
- Silence! - Pointing a loaded crossbow
at Sansa Stark while you tore at her clothes and beat her.
- Silence!
- That would probably be another constitutional
violation in the United States.
Tyrion has a right to confront his accusers.
And although he's probably not allowed
to do it during the direct examination of the witness,
eventually he would have the right
to cross-examine the person who was making these statements,
especially when that person is relaying statements
that Tyrion supposedly made out of court.
So for him to be shut down entirely
and not be able to face his accusers
and the witnesses against him would be
a clear US constitutional violation.
The confrontation clause to the Sixth Amendment
states that in all criminal prosecutions,
the accused shall enjoy the right
to be confronted with the witnesses against him.
And here Tyrion does not have the right
to confront the witnesses against him, and that would be
a clear constitutional violation in this criminal trial.
- This was found on the body
of Dontos Hollard, the king's fool.
He was last seen spiriting Sansa Stark,
the wife of the accused, away from the feast.
She wore this necklace the day of the wedding.
Residue of the most rare
and terrible poison was found inside.
- Was this one of the poisons stolen from your store?
- It was the strangler,
(audience gasps)
a poison few in the Seven Kingdoms possess
and used to strike down the most noble child
the gods ever put on this good Earth.
- Yes, King Joffrey, what a good guy.
Such a shame that he perished in his youth.
Of course, this is completely improper character evidence,
which is prejudicial against the
accused in this particular case.
But that is why character evidence
should not be used in a criminal proceeding.
Putting aside the problems with the Grand Maester's
expert opinion here, in any criminal proceeding,
you have to show what's called the chain of custody
of any particular piece of evidence.
Because the police will gather the evidence,
and then you need to show what happens
to that evidence from every step, from being gathered
to being stored to being produced in court,
because all kinds of things can go wrong,
especially when you're dealing with
DNA evidence or fingerprint evidence.
And here, the Grand Maester has apparently
just picked up this random bracelet.
He then stuffed it into his shirt pocket
or the sleeve of his shirt and just
withdrew it at the trial itself.
If I was a criminal defendant, I would really want
to know what happened and who possessed this necklace
or this bracelet throughout the entire course
of its existence so that I could show
that it hadn't been tampered with.
If the Grand Maester, for example,
had an ax to grind against the defendant,
which he clearly does here, he could've taken
the bracelet and added a drop of the poison
that he is accused of using against Joffrey the King here.
So there's all kinds of reasons that in modern-day
jurisprudence you have to show chain of custody.
And if I was able to cross-examine this Grand Maester,
I think I could really do a world of damage
showing his, number one, bias, and number two,
that the chain of custody of effectively
the murder weapon is really questionable at best.
- [Tywin] Do you remember the precise nature of this threat?
- I'm afraid I do, my lord.
He said, "Perhaps you should speak more softly to me, then.
"Monsters are dangerous, and just now
"kings are dying like flies."
- [Tywin] And he said this to you
at a meeting of the small council?
- Yes, after we received word of Robb Stark's death.
He didn't seem gladdened by the news.
Perhaps his marriage to Sansa Stark
had made him more sympathetic to the northern cause.
(audience gasps and groans)
- While the latter portion of that testimony
is clearly speculation, he's speculating about
the frame of mind that Tyrion had
when he received the news of Robb Stark's death,
the prior statements of Tyrion at the small council meeting,
again, probably come in under the party admission
exception to the hearsay rule.
- Father, may I ask the witness one question?
- One.
- Finally Tyrion gets to confront one of his accusers.
Geez, this is clearly a Sixth Amendment violation.
And on top of it, no judge in the world
would ever limit a criminal defendant
facing life imprisonment or execution
to one single question on cross-examination.
This is an abomination of a criminal trial,
at least as it accords with the
US modern standards of jurisprudence.
It's not good to be a criminal defendant
in 15th century England, or the equivalent in Westeros.
- I did not kill Joffrey, but I wish that I had.
Watching your vicious bastard die
gave me more relief than a thousand lying whores.
(dramatic orchestral music) (audience jeers)
I wish I was the monster you think I am.
I wish I had enough poison for the whole pack of you.
I would gladly give my life to watch you all swallow it.
- I haven't seen that in court,
but generally that's not a great strategy.
Not a great defense strategy to insult
the entire gallery and the entire jury at the same time
and suggest that although you didn't
kill the victim, you wish you had.
- I will not give my life for Joffrey's murder,
and I know I'll get no justice here.
So I will let the gods decide my fate.
(suspenseful orchestral music)
I demand a trial by combat.
- I assume you'd have to make some sort of motion
with a court and you can't just request a trial by combat
when the trial is not going particularly well for you.
That being said, trial by combat is a real thing
that actually existed in the 15th century in England.
But it also existed well into
the 20th century in many places.
And in fact, some of the last instances
of trial by combat existed in the 1960s in France.
So it is not crazy for a criminal
defendant to request trial by combat.
Probably not a great move by Tyrion,
because I think generally speaking,
real-life trial by combat required
the actual accused to be the one doing the combat.
But trial by combat was never
an option in the United States,
so not realistic from a US perspective.
(playful music)
Okay, that was the trial of Tyrion Lannister
from season four of Game of Thrones.
Now it's time to give this episode
a grade for legal realism.
(gavel bangs)
On the one hand, you have evidence that is certainly
probative of someone actually committing regicide
in killing the king through poison.
You have some hearsay statements
that are likely to come in under
the exception to the hearsay rule,
so that evidence probably would've been
able to be used in this particular trial.
On the other hand, you have tons
of constitutional violations, including the violation
of the right against self-incrimination,
the violation of being able to confront your accused,
and the violation of having an attorney
present during a criminal proceeding.
All in all, Tyrion did not get a fair trial
and the deck was stacked against him
in a way that hopefully does not exist in modern US law.
So I'm giving the trial of Tyrion Lannister
a D-minus for accuracy.
This episode should be killed
by poison, preferably the strangler.
- I found it surprisingly beautiful
in a brutal, horribly uncomfortable sort of way.
- Did you know that much of what happens
in Game of Thrones is actually based on real-life events,
especially the War of the Roses in Plantagenet England?
One of the best documentary series I've ever seen
is the Real War of Thrones on CuriosityStream.
It's an amazing series that explains all the details
that happened in real life that gave rise
to a lot of what actually happened in Game of Thrones,
for example, how the Lannisters are basically
identical to the real-life Lancasters
and how the Starks are effectively the real-life Yorks.
It's an amazing series with incredible production values.
So if it seems like a lot of Game of Thrones feels like
real historical events, that's because it actually is.
If you want some clues about how Game of Thrones
is going to end, your best bet is CuriosityStream.
Legal Eagles will get a free account
for 31 days by clicking the link below
or using the promo code LegalEagle.
Using the promo code really helps out the channel.
So click on the link below and get
CuriosityStream for free, and get your Game of Thrones
fix while you're waiting for the next episode.
Do you agree?
Leave your objections in the comments
and check out my other Real Lawyer Reactions over here,
where I'll see you in court.