"The Verdict"

[Number Six]

The Turner movie channel ran "The Verdict" recently. Great movie, Jack Warden was the strongest performance IMO, among the many strong actors in it. There are not many movies featuring trials like this. Have any lawyers on this forum seen theatrics as both lawyers and the judge engaged in? Bending the rules to the breaking point, or is that just entertainment? On the final decisive witness, how is it that her testimony could be struck from the record since her role as a rebuttal to the record, and as a surprise witness? Thanks.

[wserra]

The courtroom stuff is very unrealistic. And, for a Prince Of Darkness, James Mason does a really bad cross.

[fortinbras]

Despite its tremendous popularity, THE VERDICT showed an incredible absence of professional ethics.
Jack Warden gives his inept alcoholic friend, Paul Newman, a client as an act of charity (to Newman, not the client).
James Mason (the opposing lawyer) is paying an associate of Newman to spy on him.
Paul Newman breaks into someone's mailbox and steals the mail.
A doctor is scheduled to be an expert witness and deliberately disappears just before the trial begins (presumably bribed by Mason to do so).
The best evidence rule is turned on its head by Mason with the cooperation of the judge.
One thing that may well be realistic: Faced with a major lawsuit, the defendant corporation (a hospital) gears up with a major public relations campaign to swamp the locality and brainwash the entire jury pool.

[Jeffrey]

I been sucked into American Crime Story and Making a Murderer lately. No offense, but murder cases are way more interesting than tax cases.

[Pottapaug1938]

Can the currently practicing lawyers here suggest any courtroom or legal movies which are at all realistic?

[Pottapaug1938]

The only thing I liked about The Verdict is that I recognized the scenes filmed in the Massachusetts State House.

[Duke2Earl]

I saw the movie some time ago. I thought it was an entertaining movie. Of course it wasn't realistic.....it was a movie.

[Judge Roy Bean]

Can the currently practicing lawyers here suggest any courtroom or legal movies which are at all realistic?

IMHO movies don't do a very good job of depicting trials, mainly because movies are a stream-of-consciousness experience meant to capture and hold an audiences attention over a couple of hours while actual trials (both civil and criminal) are often undramatic and tedious.

[AndyK]

FIFY

Can the currently practicing lawyers here suggest any courtroom or legal movies which are at all realistic?

IMHO movies don't do a very good job of depicting trials, mainly because movies are a stream-of-consciousness experience meant to capture and hold an audiences attention over a couple of hours while actual trials (both civil and criminal) are often AT BEST undramatic and tedious.

I've served on several juries, both civil and criminal cases. It's fortunate for both the prosecution and defense attornies that no firearms are permitted in the court house.

[Number Six]

Here is a list of significant US courtroom trial movies: http://www.listal.com/list/trial-movies

And as pointed out real life is far less entertaining than fictional drama or movies based loosely on fact. Hail Mary witnesses are probably as rare as getting hit by a meteor.

[fortinbras]

I have long had the pipedream of working up a screenplay of The Trial of Clay Shaw -- the same case (involving the assassination of JFK) that was completely twisted up in Oliver Stone's JFK (1991, starring Kevin Costner). An honest telling would show how a completely innocent man is hounded and nearly convicted by a sociopathic prosecutor, willing to use fake evidence and delusional witnesses to make a name for himself.

[Arthur Rubin]

An honest telling would show how a completely innocent man is hounded and nearly convicted by a sociopathic prosecutor, willing to use fake evidence and delusional witnesses to make a name for himself.

McMartin?

[Number Six]

These days incompetent prosecutors and judges can get identified and scheduled for disciplinary action quickly. As bad as Garrison's actions were, I would side with the conspiracy theories on Kennedy.