- [Presenter] This is Elena Fast,
a Criminal Deference Attorney and former prosecutor
with the Brooklyn DA's office.
- I've handled everything from simple drug possession
all the way up to homicides.
- [Presenter] Today, Elena is going to break down
what's right and wrong in some
of Hollywood's greatest court scenes.
[tense music]
- You can see I'm broadcasting from my living room.
The criminal justice world is also shut down
due to the Coronavirus.
So, our whole firm has been operating from our homes.
[machine whirs] [tense music]
First up, The Dark Knight.
- Heads I'll take it, tails he's all yours.
- Oh yeah?
You wanna flip a coin to see who leads?
- No one ever flips a coin in the middle
of trial to figure out who is first chair,
meaning lead attorney, or who's second chair,
meaning co-council but co-council in a junior capacity.
Trials are incredibly stressful,
and as much as you can plan ahead, you do.
- With Carmine Falcone in Arkham
someone must have stepped up to run the so called family.
Is that man in this court room today?
- So, the witnesses are actually not permitted
at trial to give their answer by nodding
or by shaking their head.
If the witness had done so,
the attorney that was asking the questions
would have made a record saying
"I see you nodding your head up and down,
"what do you mean by that?"
Because there is a stenographer that takes down
word for word the testimony that is given.
- Maroni?
He's a fall guy.
I'm the brains of the organization.
[audience laughs]
- [Judge] Order.
- [Lawyer] Permission to treat the witness as hostile.
- [Judge] Granted.
- Asking the judge to treat the witness as hostile
means that instead of asking them open ended questions
like you would do on a direct examination of your witness,
you ask the judge for permission to ask yes or no questions,
and that way you limit whatever the witness is able
to say with limiting him or her to yes or no responses.
- Hostile?
I'll show you hostile! [audience gasps]
[witness groans]
- So, I would say it's probably impossible,
maybe nearly impossible, to get a gun into a courtroom.
Attorneys in federal court actually have it way worse
than you probably do through TSA pre-check.
They scan all of your belongings,
they take away all of your electronics with the exception
of maybe a single cell phone,
if you have a special pass for it.
You go through metal detectors, you get wanded,
and it's a very secure environment.
I haven't heard of a single case where someone was able
to bring a gun in to either state
or federal court in New York.
[machine whirs] [tense music]
Next up is Legally Blonde.
- Get up.
- What?
- You're fired.
I have new representation.
- So, firing you lawyer mid trial
is probably the silliest thing you could do.
If you have any sort of concerns about your representation
or how things are going,
that should all be taken care of before trial.
[gentle music]
As much as I love Elle Woods, the attire is absolutely
not accurate as to what attorneys wear in real life.
There's no sandals allowed in court,
and even if you wear a dress,
you're still required to wear some sort
of blazer or jacket over it.
Could've been pink, but she was missing a jacket.
- Your honor, rule 3.03 of the Supreme Judicial Court
states that a law student may appear
on behalf of a defendant in criminal proceedings.
- This is very inaccurate.
This would never happen.
No law student would be allowed
to conduct a cross examination
of the most important witness on a homicide trial
without ever doing a cross examination
or any sort of trial work beforehand.
The first case that I tried, I still remember this,
it was a search warrant with a crack rock in the bedsheets.
It's baby steps.
- Had you ever gotten a perm before?
- Yes.
- How many would you say?
- Two a year since I was 12.
You do the math.
- You know, a girl in my sorority Tracy Marcinko
got a perm once.
- So, you do not get to talk about yourself
or tell stories when you're in a trial.
You're not allowed to do this during jury selection,
or your opening, and especially not
when you're examining a witness.
- If in fact you weren't washing your hair,
as I suspect you weren't because your curls are still
in tact, wouldn't you have heard the gunshot?
And if in fact you had head the gunshot,
Brooke Windham wouldn't have had time
to hide the gun before you got downstairs.
- As exciting as this is to be on a roll,
unfortunately you don't get to ask compound questions.
They have to get separated out.
- You however, had time to hide the gun, didn't you Chutney?
After you shot your father.
- I didn't mean to shoot him.
I thought it was you walking through the door!
- This is a very cinematic moment.
It hasn't happened in my professional career
where I've been able to break a witness down
to the point of confession.
And I can't think of a single colleague
that has gotten this accomplished.
[machine whirs] [tense music]
Next up, My cousin Vinny.
- Can you tell me,
what would the correct ignition timing be
on a 1955 Bel Air Chevrolet, with a 327 cubic inch engine,
and a full barrel carburetor?
- It's a bullshit question.
- Does that mean that you can't answer it?
- It's a bullshit question, it's impossible to answer.
- Impossible because you don't know the answer!
- Nobody could answer that question!
- So, I don't think any attorney would ever, ever,
get this close to a witness during their testimony,
because you, one, are invading their personal space,
and two, you're not really sure what reaction
you're going to get from them.
- Watch this.
- 'Cause Chevy didn't make a 327 in '55,
the 327 didn't come out until '62.
And it wasn't offered in the Bel Air
with a four barrel carb 'til '64.
- So, this is the number one thing
they teach you in law school,
and that's not to ask any questions
that you don't know the answer to,
especially when this is done at trial before a jury.
So, this is lawyering 101 gone bad.
[machine whirs] [tense music]
Next up, 12 Angry Men.
- Now, are you trying to 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 it's 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.
- So, this juror is doing what every defense attorney
wants him or her to do, and that's question the evidence
and hold the government to their burden.
This juror does not seem convinced that this knife
is so unique that there's no other plausible explanation
as to how the crime could have happened.
- [Man] Where did that come from?
[men shouting]
- 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.
- So, this is all sorts of bad.
One of the things that the judge says
is you're not allowed to do any additional research,
you can't read about the case,
you can't talk to anyone about the case,
you also can't go to the crime scene.
What this juror seemed to have done is actually gone out
to the crime scene to conduct his own investigation.
- 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.
- So, the government's burden is beyond a reasonable doubt
and all the defense needs to do is have a shot
at there being some other possibility
or any other explanation.
So, defense has no burden in this case,
it's all on the government and it seems that the jurors here
are slowly becoming skeptical of the government's case.
[machine whirs] [tense music]
Up next, we have The Lincoln Lawyer.
- [Lawyer] You were with Miss Campo
on the night of March 6th?
- Yep.
We went on a date to the Association,
then I took her back to her place for another date.
- And did you have sexual relations?
- About 400 bucks worth.
She earned every single cent.
- In real life this would be a lot longer,
a lot more thought out.
This witness does not appear to be a sympathetic person
or someone that the jury would like.
If anything, the jury would think this guy's a sleazebag,
and if this is how he is behaving in court,
he may be responsible for hurting the woman
and for punching her.
That is not something that would happen in real life
because the prosecutor meets with the witnesses
a handful of times in order for the prosecutor
to kind of clean them up a little
and put forth the most presentable version
of the witness to the jury.
- When you left Mr Talbot, what condition was she in?
Was she hurt?
- No.
She was fine.
- She did not look like this?
- Man, what kind of sick bastard does something like that?
- So, as the defense attorney,
I would probably object to his characterization
of someone as a sick bastard,
that is incredibly prejudicial,
and what you're trying to do is for the jury
to make up their own mind rather than rely
on anybody else's characterization
of your client or the actions.
- Isn't it true that before you left Miss Campo's apartment
she asked you to repeatedly strike her
in the face with your left first?
- Your Honor, Mr. Haller is just muddying
the waters with outrageous statements.
- So, the defense job is to muddy the waters.
It's not necessarily to get your client in a huddle,
but every little bit helps.
If the jury's sitting there and they're thinking
"Well, there is another explanation for these injuries,"
and if you have the jury thinking
that something else may have happened,
you're getting closer and closer to either a hung jury
or to an outright acquittal,
if the jurors have doubts, they can't convict.
- Do you a prostitute named Shaquille Barton?
[laughs]
Work name is Shaquilla Shakels?
- Yeah, yeah.
I seen her once.
- And if I brought her in here and she said
"Yes, Mr. Haller he did strike me
"with his left fist in my face,"
- She'd be lying.
- So, this is why a lot of preparation goes a long way.
It's very common for defense attorneys
to hire investigators to develop their strategy.
I can't tell you how many times we've been able
to dig up dirt or discover really unfavorable things
about a witness even if they had nothing
to do with the case.
[machine whirs] [tense music]
Next up, Law Biding Citizen.
- In light of Mr. Shelton's economic means
and his potential flight risk, the egregious nature
of both Mr. Ames and Mr. Darby's deaths,
the state requests the bail be denied, Your Honor.
- So, what we just watched was an application
by Jamie Fox's character to the judge.
Not to set any bail on a matter,
but instead keep the matter on what's called remand,
meaning no amount of bail or money will get an individual
out until the resolution of the case.
- I am not a flight risk,
and this is my first alleged offense.
And the prosecution has not presented
one single piece of evidence against me.
Now in these circumstances,
unless the state has obtained some new piece
of information relating to my involvement
in the matter in question,
then I find it highly prejudicial, even constitutionally
offensive to keep me detained without bail.
- So, this is a phenomenal bail application
by Gerard Butler's character,
and it's very impressive for someone
that's doing this without an attorney.
I think in real life an attorney would still be by his side.
It's way too risky to let an individual
without presumably any special legal training
to make a bail application
on a double homicide case on their own.
- [Judge] I will grant bail in the amount of,
- Your Honor, I would caution you not to do that.
[laughs] - Thank you.
- Excuse me?
- No, I don't think I will excuse you.
You see, this is what I'm talking about.
You were about to let me go,
are you kidding me?
This is why we're here in the first place.
- So, I think,
bail on a double homicide
is exceedingly rare.
It seems that he has a huge issue with the judge
just buying his pitch
and considering bail
based on what the conduct is in this case.
I've seen defendants tell the judge to go sit on it
or curse the judge out, but that's typically done
not when bail is about to be granted,
but when bail is set too high or bail is denied.
[machine whirs] [tense music]
- Last up, we have Fracture.
- [Man] Mr. Beecham.
This here man addresses the court.
- I'm very sorry, Your Honor.
Very sorry.
It's a long story.
- I mean, it happens where you end up
wearing the wrong thing to court.
I have a colleague of mine of that can't figure
out his brown shoes.
So, at least Mr. Beecham apologized
to the judge for wearing attire
that is not necessarily court appropriate,
but at least he's got a jacket on.
- Do you wish to enter a plea at this time?
- Not guilty, but I also want to waive my right
to council and represent myself.
- Surely you won't have trouble
finding an attorney, Mr. Crawford?
- No, but I want to do it myself.
- So, individuals are able to represent themselves.
In New York, that's called going pro se,
where you act as both the individual on trial
and also as the attorney.
Typically what happens, is even if you don't want
to get an attorney, the judge makes you get an attorney,
not for the purposes of them conducting the proceeding,
but for the purposes of acting as your legal advisor.
- Mr. Crawford wants to go pro per,
that's gonna take a while.
Sadly, I won't be here for it.
The People have no objection.
- You honor, I'd like to waive my right
to a preliminary hearing and go direct
to trial as soon as possible,
does that help you Mr. Beecham?
- So, waiving a preliminary hearing and going straight
to trial is an irresponsible thing to do for the defense.
Generally speaking, time is on the side
of the defense when it comes to criminal matters,
because the attorneys and the investigators really need
to get up to speed on the case and figure
out as much information as they can,
because the government most likely has been
on this case for weeks, months,
in some situations, even years.
- [Judge] You don't have to worry
about Mr. Beecham, Mr. Crawford.
District Attorney's Office will assign another prosecutor.
- No, I like Mr. Beecham.
- Mr. Beecham,
he likes you.
- The secretaries offices have, in some situations,
hundreds of prosecutors and,
I wish we could pick who we did cases with,
it'd make my job a lot easier.
Now that we've seen a few of these clips,
we know that Hollywood doesn't always get it right.
So, if you do have jury duty
or if you're testifying at a court proceeding,
just please remember none of us are that
good looking in real life.