Courtroom Antic: Difference between revisions

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{{trope}}
{{quote|''If the facts are against you, pound on the law. If the law is against you, pound on the facts. And if both are against you, pound on the table!''|'''Legal aphorism'''}}
 
A courtroom on television tends to be a very different place from its real-world counterpart. The real courts are boring places at times; cases drag on for months or years, arguments bog down in the most tedious of minutiae and the outcome (if it wasn't a lost cause for one side or the other from the beginning) might have more to do with one side's ability to bankrupt the other in legal fees than anything else.
 
For dramatic purposes, this just won't do. To hold an audience's attention for anything more than the briefest trial, there needs to be [[Courtroom Episode|courtroom drama]]... which only gets played one of a few common ways.
 
One common trope is the [[Crusading Lawyer]] who makes grand, idealistic and oratorical discourse to appeal to the emotions of judge or jury; instead of sticking to the finer parts of the law, counsel instead focuses on how one particular outcome will allow the corporate raiders to take over and close the town's only factory, while reminding the jurors that they too grew up in that same village and inviting them to recall in fine detail all of the memories of their childhoods in that community, before returning to explain how, if the factory closes, the town dies and nothing will be left of those precious memories but tears and sorrow.
 
The opposite side of this trope is the [[Amoral Attorney]] who, with an evil laugh, insists that he doesn't care what happens to the town, as long as [[Mega Corp]] keeps making enough profit to keep paying his outlandish fee.
 
Sometimes that isn't enough to differentiate this case from a thousand others in a thousand other broadcasts or films. Enter the [[Bunny Ears Lawyer]], who will usually be incompetent enough to make a complete mockery of whatever passed for "due process" in even the [[Hollywood Law]] of a fictional court, but whose antics are worth more laughs than a barrel of monkeys. The trial may well be doomed, but the audience will be kept entertained to the bitter end... for all the wrong reasons.
 
The case is going against the defendant when suddenly, the defense attorney starts making penguin noises, discussing his sex life with [[The Judge]], pulling vegetables out from under the defendant's chair, or [[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney|calls the witness's pet parrot]] [[Make the Dog Testify|to the stand to testify]].
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{{examples|suf=s}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
 
== Anime and Manga ==
* [[Gintama]] episode 95 shouts out to [[Ace Attorney]] series, so naturally plenty of courtroom antics ensue, including but not limited to watching porns submitted as evidences during trial and having the judge abuse his power to rewind his favorite scenes in slow motion. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A5fGufFWCI It has to be seen to be believed].
 
== [[Film]] ==
 
== Film ==
* In ''[[The Kentucky Fried Movie]],'' a court skit features a prosecutor who pulls out a large, floppy dildo and waves it threateningly at a witness, inquiring "Are you aware of the penal codes in this state?"
* ''[[Chicago]]'': This is Billy Flynn's entire law practice. Courtroom antics, press conference antics, and probably an example on every sub-page of this index.
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* The Judd Nelson vehicle "From The Hip" showed future ''[[Ally McBeal]]'' creator David E. Kelley's penchant for this trope.
* The title character of ''[[My Cousin Vinny]]'' does things that would put a real lawyer in contempt of court. [[Reality Ensues|He's put in contempt of court.]]
* ''[[All of Me]]'' has a lawyer (played by Steve Martin) mishandle his employer's divorce trial badly enough to be physically thrown out of a courtroom, as one final step toward {{spoiler|leaving the legal profession entirely, because he'd rather be a professional musician.}}
* ''[[Airplane!]] 2: The Sequel''. Played for laughs as both sides indulge in these during Ted Stryker's trial.
* ''[[Fatal Instinct]]''. Both the prosecution and the defense indulge in these tactics during Lana Ravine's trial.
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* Justified in ''[[Miracle on 34th Street]]'' in that the proceeding is a judicial inquiry, not a criminal trial, and Judge Harper was fearful of the political fallout of committing Kris Kringle to a mental institution, so he gave Fred Gailey considerable leeway to allow him to make a reasonable argument to let Kris go.
 
== [[Literature]] ==
 
== Literature ==
* Invoked ever so hard in the [[Forgotten Realms]] novel ''Tantras.'' Storm Silverhand, the prosecutor against the protagonists who stand accused of murdering Elminster, makes an absolute mockery of the court. She uses horribly leading questions, badgering of witnesses, whipping the audience into am emotional frenzy with screamed accusations, and claims the defense attorney has been magically charmed by his clients when he protests this behavior. In the end her behavior is not only allowed, she actually ''wins the case without a shred of solid evidence''.
* The ''[[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[Discworld/Making Money|Making Money]]'' has a trial in which our hero, Moist von Lipwig, currently acting chairman of the bank, is on trial for the unexplained disappearance of nearly ten tons of gold. He's very nervous about a former accomplice of his threatening to reveal that he is, in fact, [[Boxed Crook|a former con artist]] who had been hanged under an assumed name, and has a slightly guilty conscience as he submits to questioning, when he sees a small dog ([[Pet Heir|the actual chairman]]) wander in while sitting down and wagging its tail. These are both happening at once because the dog is holding in its mouth its favorite toy - a huge chewy [[It Makes Sense in Context|vibrator]] - which has turned itself on and whose vibrations are ''propelling the sitting dog backwards across the courtroom floor and out of sight'' while everybody tries desperately not to notice and offend the Patrician. Lipwig reasons that a world in which this can actually happen in the middle of a court is a world which can handle him acting as chairman of a bank, and proceeds to [[Honesty Is the Best Policy|confess everything about his backstory]].
* Several chapters of [[8-Bit Theater|Brian Clevinger]]'s novel ''[[Nuklear Age]]'' are devoted to a lengthy courtroom fiasco. For starters, the heroes' (who are being prosecuted by their arch-nemesis) lawyer happens to be their nemesis' boyfriend, the entire jury is made up of [[Joker Jury|people whose lives the heroes have ruined]], and the judge is a bloodthirsty man named [[Hanging Judge|Hangemall Letgodsortitout]]. It needs to be read to be believed.
* The murder trial in [[Little Fuzzy]], starting even before the trial begins, with two murder cases being combined into a single trial, the appointment of the defense attorneys as special prosecutors, and key witnesses being seized as "evidence." It goes on to mutate from a civilian trial into a court-martial and an academic seminar, with two flavors of surprise witnesses, and the continued prosecution of a dead man after one of the defendants commits suicide. And there are in-universe precedents for most of this: "You could find a precedent for almost anything in colonial law."
 
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
 
* ''[[Law & Order|Law and Order]]'' had Jack McCoy go off on an increasingly hostile rant made up mostly of revealing evidence that was inadmissible so he could get a mistrial and try the case again if/when the body was found. He did get in trouble for it (contempt of court) so it was a bit of a falling on his sword moment.
== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Law & Order|Law and Order]]'' had Jack McCoy go off on an increasingly hostile rant made up mostly of revealing evidence that was inadmissible so he could get a mistrial and try the case again if/when the body was found. He did get in trouble for it (contempt of court) so it was a bit of a falling on his sword moment.
** An episode of ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'' had the prosecution trot out a child witness (whom they had no intention of actually forcing to testify) for the sole purpose of having him dramatically react to the defendant's (his own father) presence. The judge let it fly without so much as a jury instruction to disregard.
** In a completely opposite and somewhat deconstructed example, a judge orders a child witness in a rape case to testify in person. The prosecutors ask for, and are denied, the option of having the girl testify via closed-circuit television in order to spare her from being in the same room as the accused. Although they tell the girl to keep her eyes forward and not look around when she enters the courtroom to avoid contact with her attacker as much as possible, when she enters, she glances up and sees the defendant seated at his table. She stops and stares for several moments before the prosecutor withdraws any questions she has and ushers the girl away. Immediately after, the defense accuses her of orchestrating a Courtroom Antic; by letting the girl come out and stare at the defendant, she gives the jury the impression of recognition and therefore guilt, which they feel counts as testimony, while denying the defense the opportunity to cross-examine.
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* ''[[Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye|Sue Thomas FB Eye]]'': In the pilot, Sue, a Deaf woman who reads lips for the FBI, testifies in court about a conversation held in a surveillance video with no sound. The defense attorney calls her accuracy into question, then approaches the bench and tells the judge that Sue could be making things up and is unreliable. Sue, reading his lips, shouts out "I object!" from the witness chair.
 
== [[Radio]] ==
 
== Radio ==
* Parodied in ''You'll Have Had Your Tea: The Doings of Hamish and Dougal'' episode "The Poison-Pen Letters":
{{quote|'''The Laird''': You're turning this courtroom into a circus! Get off that trapeze and call a proper witness!}}
 
== [[Theatre]] ==
 
== Theater ==
* Defense attorney Henry Drummond ''calls the prosecutor to the witness stand'' in ''Inherit the Wind.'' This actually ends up becoming Drummond's [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]]. This was based on the real cross-examination of William Jennings Bryan by Clarence Darrow from the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925.
** Which kind of fails, as Courtroom Antics are generally for the benefit of the jury. In the Scopes trial there was no jury. It's the reason it never made it to the Supreme Court. The judgment was overturned because the fine assessed was an amount that required a jury. His conviction was overturned, so there was nothing to appeal. The case was, wisely, never refiled.
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* The entirety of ''[[Gilbert and Sullivan|Trial By Jury]]'' which involves, among other things, the court usher telling the jury to ignore what the defendant has to say and the judge ''marrying'' the plaintiff at the end.
 
== [[Video Games]] ==
 
== Video Games ==
* The point and appeal of the ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' series is probably best summed up by this trope. The first game alone has the protagonist cross-examining a parrot and waving a metal detector around the courtroom, and by the final case of the Phoenix arc you're {{spoiler|cross-examining a dead person channeled by your assistant.}}
** There's a twist in that Phoenix himself (a defense attorney) maintains a level of professionalism, but many of the prosecutors do not. In the first game, Manfred von Karma practically intimidates the judge into letting him run the courtroom; in the second game, von Karma's younger daughter Franziska (also a prosecutor) tries to cow the judge, the witnesses, and even the defense by smacking them with her whip, even going so far as to whip poor Phoenix ''unconscious'' after losing case 2 (See [http://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic1-100107.php here] for an excellent example of Franziska's whipping-ness); and in the third game, prosecutor Godot throws his scalding hot coffee across the room in a fit of pique several times. All of Godot's responses tend to consist of [[Fauxlosophic Narration|bizarre philosophical tangents]], most of them about coffee. Also, whenever the judge mentions that he's ready to render judgment or something like that, Godot cuts him off with 'I'll be the one to pass judgment, old man!' ... Yeah. Ironically enough, Phoenix himself often gets berated by the judge for much less.
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*** A voice recording that clearly proves that he was heavily involved. ("Eden Prime was a major victory.")
 
== [[Web Comics]] ==
 
== Web Comics ==
* Richard of ''[[Looking for Group]]'' went through something like this, with the twist that he's on trial for ''not being evil enough''. He killed ''[http://lfgcomic.com/page/157 everyone]''.
* The following from one of ''[[Irritability]]''{{'}}s early strips:
{{quote|'''Judge''': Even if you ''did'' have your fingers crossed, you can't lie under oath!
'''Chappy''': You don't understand you fat old bastard, I ''totally'' had them crossed! }}
 
== [[Western Animation]] ==
 
* In one ''[[Justice League (animation)|Justice League]]'' episode, an alien court accuses Green Lantern of blowing up an entire planet so the Flash stalls for time by offering to be his lawyer. [[Hilarity Ensues|Flash is a work in progress]].
== Western Animation ==
* In one ''[[Justice League]]'' episode, an alien court accuses Green Lantern of blowing up an entire planet so the Flash stalls for time by offering to be his lawyer. [[Hilarity Ensues|Flash is a work in progress]].
* ''[[South Park]]'' skewered it with the "[[Chewbacca Defense]]" ([https://web.archive.org/web/20180817145822/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense]) in the episode "Chef-Aid" (hell, [[South Park]] is the [[Trope Namer]] for that subtrope).
* ''[[Duckman]]'': Duckman resorts to desperate measures such as accusing a witness of being Japanese and acting generally ridiculous. "A-HA! You ASSUME! But everyone knows that when you ASSUME... (pulls out a chalkboard) uh... wait, there's some kinda trick to this..." Eventually his nonstop insanity causes the real culprit, King Chicken, to [[The Perry Mason Method|confess]] rather than have to listen to him any longer. What makes this particularly funny was the fact that Cornfed actually got Duckman acquitted before he used these tactics.
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*** In any case, it's debatable whether or not you can blame him for the fact that his witness, a surveillance camera, had a memory so fuzzy that he didn't see that Bender and Fry were actually hostages.
*** And then in the same case, the Hyperchicken convinced his clients to change their plea from innocent to not guilty by reason of insanity mid-trial. When the judge asked if he had any substantiating evidence that his clients were insane, he replied, "Well, for one, they hired me as their defense attorney." It worked.
* Parodied on ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]''; while stalling for time in Bart's suit against the makers of Itchy and Scratchy, Lionel Hutz decides to call all his surprise witnesses ''again'', to groans from people in the court; the group includes Ralph Wiggum, a Santa Claus in a cast, and Billy & Benny McCrary, the "world's fattest twins."
** The permissive judge aspect of this trope was spoofed in another episode, where Bart makes an unusual request of the judge. The judge replies, "Well, it is highly unorthodox...so no!"
** And again: "Even though reopening a trial at this point is illegal and grossly unconstitutional, I just can't say no to kids."
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* An episode of ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' had Jimmy being tried for trying to fake the Miseryville version of the Tooth Fairy, with this as the result.
 
== [[Real Life]] ==
 
* By today's standards Bartholomew Chassenee's case facing off against the catholic church to defend rats would have ''definitely'' counted. His arguments would have been reasonable if his clients were human, and so, out of fairness, the court allowed ordered certain accommodations. This went on until the court was so fed up with Chassenee's defense, they dropped the case [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALWLELLlv6E].
== Real Life ==
* [[Moral Guardians|Jack Thompson]], aside from his video game-related shenanigans, is also someone who once introduced dozens of pages of gay porn into evidence—pages which were then put directly into the evidence database. Subverted in that he actually got disbarred for it.
* [[wikipedia:Temple Lea Houston|Temple Lea Houston]] fired two pistols into the ceiling, scaring the jury and causing them to flee the courtroom. He said to the judge that he did it to "prove his client's fear of the victim's 'incredible speed' of gunfire". [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|He then successfully argued for a mistrial, as the jury wasn't sequestered.]]
* The above example in the Scopes trialMonkey Trial (prosecutor called to the witness stand by defense) is not unique. It happened to prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi in the Manson trial (this was deemed justified by Bugliosi having also been very involved in the investigation of the case).
* A lot of courtroom tropes from before the 1980's originated in the trial of Bruno Hauptman who was accused of kidnapping and murdering Charles Lindbergh, Jr. The defense was paid by William Randolph Hearst in exchange for working half-heartedly and betraying his client's confidences (the lawyer also received nightly visits of NYC showgirls with champagne, courtesy of Mr. Hearst), a whole string of surprise witnesses who tended to contradict their own testimony and their statements to police, women fainting after pointing to Hauptman, and a judge who did absolutely nothing to rein in the prosecutor's (who was also the Attorney General of New Jersey) excesses and violations of procedure (both wanted to use the case to advance their political careers).
* [[wikipedia:Chicago Seven|The Trial of the Chicago Seven]]. Several scenes from the transcripts from that infamous trial, including the defendants wearing judges' robes (with Chicago police uniforms underneath) to mock what they believed was a biased court, were dramatized in the film ''[[Steal This Movie]]'', among other works. The defense also called various countercultural icons of the time as witnesses, including Phil Ochs, Arlow Guthrie, Judy Collins, Norman Mailer, Timothy Leary, and Jesse Jackson.
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* John Allen Muhammad, one half of the infamous [[wikipedia:Beltway sniper|Beltway Sniper duo]], attempted to represent himself during his first trial. Immediately after delivering his opening argument, during which he did such things as attempt to call former President [[Bill Clinton]] to the stand, he decided to avail himself of his court-appointed counsel instead, not that it helped. Of course, whether Muhammad was engaging in this trope as part of some larger gambit, or was just batshit insane, is open for debate.
* ''Attempted'' during former Governor Rod Blagojevich's corruption trial for attempting to sell [[Barack Obama]]'s Senate seat when he became President. Despite the judge already having ruled that the minutiae of the FBI wiretaps was irrelevant, the defense attorney asked the very first witness several times how many hours of wiretap footage they'd collected, trying to plant the suggestion to the jury that what they were allowed to hear was heavily edited to cast his client in the worst possible light. After the third or fourth time, the judge [[Disregard That Statement|dismissed the jury for a while]] and lambasted the defense for trying to play a [[Chewbacca Defense]].
* The trial of [[Charles Manson]] and his accomplices for seven counts of murder and one count of conspiracy is one of the most notorious examples. To begin with, Family members not named as defendants loitered outside the courthouse with plainly visible hunting knives in sheaths, simply to intimidate passersby. On one day of the proceedings, Manson himself was able to smuggle in a copy of The Los Angeles Times with the front page headline "Manson Guilty, Nixon Declares," and flash it in front of the jury (requiring Judge Charles Older to issue a ''voir dire'' to the jury before they could proceed). The next day, the female defendants stood up and said in unison that, in light of Nixon's remark, there was no point in going on with the trial. (Older naturally didn't buy it.) Two months later, after Manson's request to question a prosecution witness (who had already been cross-examined by the defense) was denied, he actually tried to attack the judge; he had to be removed after being wrestled to the ground by the bailiffs, as the female defendants rose to their feet and started chanting in Latin. Older kept a loaded revolver under his robe for the remainder of the trial. Besides the Family themselves, defense attorney Irving Kanarek kept objecting over every little thing, often racking up a hundred in a single day, and was so notorious for having trials extended beyond belief that [[Chewbacca Defense| another attorney had once quit rather than face him again]]. He was held in contempt of court numerous times but never quit objecting.
 
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