Chewbacca Defense: Difference between revisions

Line 205:

* Apocryphally, famous mathematician Euler used one of these as a way of shutting up Diderot, an atheist who was converting local people away from God. They had an actual public debate, and Euler's first argument was to say "[[E=MC Hammer|(a + b^n)/n = x]], therefore God exists. Respond!" Diderot [[Writers Cannot Do Math|had no idea what to say]], and ended up leaving.

** This is [http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/euler.html almost certainly untrue], however - Diderot was actually a very good mathematician and Euler was too thoughtful to use such an asinine tactic.

* The [[Trope Namer]] was based on Johnnie Cochran's defense of O.J. Simpson, which succeeded largely due to the ignorance of the jury and carelessness of the prosecution. First by focusing the jury on their confusion and uncertainty of what DNA is and how DNA testing really works, and turning that into "reasonable doubt". Second by portraying O.J. as the unjust black victim of white racism via the whole Mark Fuhrman debacle. Third, by using this to hold O.J. out as a prominent member of the black community, which he wasn't. Fourth by making it seem as though the bloody leather gloves did not fit Simpson's hands, when it fact he was putting them on incorrectly.

* The [[Trope Namer]] from [[South Park]] was based on Johnnie Cochran's defense of [[O.J. Simpson]], which succeeded largely due to the ignorance of the jury and carelessness of the prosecution. First by focusing the jury on their confusion and uncertainty of what DNA is and how DNA testing really works, and turning that into "reasonable doubt". Second by portraying O.J. as the unjust black victim of white racism via the whole Mark Fuhrman debacle. Third, by using this to hold O.J. out as a prominent member of the black community, which he wasn't. Fourth by making it seem as though the bloody leather gloves did not fit Simpson's hands, when it fact he was putting them on incorrectly.

** Incidentally, in his book ''To be a Trial Lawyer,'' F. Lee Bailey wrote disapprovingly that if a client is guilty, then a lawyer's best bet is to get the most unintelligent jury possible.

*** He also wrote that a lawyer should never ask a witness a question, to which the lawyer doesn't know the answer (also one of [[Rumpole]]'s maxims) ... which is quite telling in regards to the fact that he had evidence about the Mark Furhman "N-word" issue, and was unethically setting him up for an ambush—a Chewbacca Defense in itself.