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{{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.
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 (Visual Novel)|calls the witness's pet parrot]] [[Make the Dog Testify|to the stand to testify]].▼
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
The more desperate the case, the more likely the defense attorney uses such antics.
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Often, this antic will result in a [[Penultimate Outburst]].
{{examples|suf=s}}▼
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
* [[
== [[Film]] ==▼
▲{{examples}}
▲== Anime and Manga ==
▲* [[Gintama (Manga)|Gintama]] episode 95 shouts out to [[Ace Attorney (Visual Novel)|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 ==
* 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.
{{quote|
* ''[[Duck Soup]]'' has a version in which the [[Marx Brothers]] are performing courtroom antics not to prevent/assure convictions, but simply because their characters are...well...[[Cloudcuckoolander|who]] [[Crazy Awesome|they]] [[Rule of Funny|are]]. Cases in point: offering the witness bets on whether there's a conviction; sustaining objections on the grounds "I couldn't think of anything else to say either"; and an [[Incredibly Lame Pun]] or two.
* Not expected or intended, but [[Exploited Trope|deliberately played on]]: in ''[[The Dark Knight]]'', an accused gangster tries to shoot prosecutor Harvey Dent in the middle of the trial. Dent promptly punches and disarms him, stunning the entire court. When the judge calls for a recess, Dent hams it up: "Your honor, I'm not finished!". A straight version happens later in the movie, when Dent intends to try most of the Mafia roll call (~500 people) in one sitting.
* 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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* Amanda Bonner in ''[[Adams Rib|Adam's Rib]]'' practically turns the courtroom into a circus.
* ''[[The Three Stooges]]'' had the short "Disorder In the Court", which was one of their most hilarious episodes.
* Justified in ''[[Miracle
== [[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 ''[[
* Several chapters of [[8-Bit Theater
* 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
** 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
** An episode of CI put more work into this. It was [[The Profiler|Detective Goren]] rather than the ADA who pulled this. He played the fool in order to keep the antic going longer and ended up getting thrown off the stand anyway.
* ''[[Ally McBeal]]'' had [[Once an Episode|one of these per episode]].
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** Not to mention Wolf's memorably existential self-defense: "Ohhhh, I'm twisting everything I'm saying!"
* Pretty much the entire point of ''[[This Is Wonderland]]''. Courtrooms have seen arguments (not always in English), violence, spoken-word poetry, a fake heart attack, car theft from the courthouse's parking lot, mixups with defendant's names, shouts of ?Boo!?, the outbreak of true love, and the occasional [[Freudian Slip]]. Judge Maxwell Frasier, who has been known to threaten arrest for this sort of behavior out of anyone other than himself, would often yawn loudly while people he didn't like were talking, call a recess because he was hungry/bored, or go crazy and scream.
* Inverted in an episode of ''[[Frasier]]'': a mental competency hearing for a wealthy old man, in which Frasier is appearing for the defense, is going very well for Frasier, who is acting like a consummate
* In an episode of ''[[
{{quote|
'''Darling''': Yes.
'''George''': Oh. I was rather hoping you'd say "no". }}
** The incompetence of George's Courtroom Antics doesn't make much difference though; given that he has already been found guilty of wasting the court's time for bothering with a defence at all and Darling later calls the ''judge'' as a witness (with a lot more success, since he's also the wronged party), this is [[Kangaroo Court]] at its most blatant.
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* Harm shot off a ''sub-machine gun'' in a courtroom once in ''[[JAG]]''.
** Notably, he actually lost that case, though [[Never Live It Down|boy did it get referenced a lot after that]].
* In the ''[[
** [[It Makes Sense in Context]], the evidence against Rimmer is that he truely believes he's responsible according to a mind scan; the defence is showing both that Rimmer is the kind of person who thinks it's his fault even when it isn't and he couldn't actually be responsible.
* Hardison's performance as a lawyer on ''[[Leverage]]'' was full of this. He started by bringing in a massive amount of information so boring and irrelevant that the judge was falling asleep, when by that point she should definitely have been demanding an ''actual justification'' for why it was important. Then he discredited his opposition's expert witness by bringing up the fact that he was on the no-fly list, which he only knew by hacking into their database and so had no proof of, and claiming that [[You Fail Logic Forever|if the government didn't trust him to fly how could they trust his testimony]]. The judge ignored their objection and didn't give so much as a [[Disregard That Statement]].
* ''[[Bones]]'' occasionally devolves into this when the characters have to actually get convicted. Notable events include Caroline objecting because she found something offensive, and Angela taking the First Amendment "which protects freedom of assembly, and that includes friendship." In the last case, though, she was actually jailed for contempt of court.
* In an episode of ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'', Q, acting as an advocate for the Q Continuum, is called to the stand by the advocate of another Q seeking asylum. The solution, Q literally puts himself in two places at once and commences to cross-examine himself.
* One ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' episode sees Dr. House in court for violating a Do Not Resuscitate order. His lawyer tries using a clever, albeit spurious legal ploy, which would be promptly shot down by the other party's lawyer. House stands up and explains that, while it's utterly irrelevant to the case at hand, he suspects the judge has a medical condition he should get checked for ASAP; which distracts the worried judge for the rest of the proceedings, including (presumably) the part where House's legal argument is torn to pieces.
* ''[[Rumpole of the Bailey]]'' has, in extremis, produced the occasional really impressive
** Leads to the punny line, "It must have come as a huge relief for those who heard Rumpole had kicked the bucket, to hear he had just turned a little pale."
** You know that standard "We had our differences, but respected each other" speech people give when their worst enemy dies? Rumpole actually ''[[Refuge in Audacity|stood up and said thankyou]]'' after this was delivered by <s> Judge Bullingham</s> the Mad Bull.
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* [[The Three Stooges]] short ''Disorder in the Court'' runs on this trope. Calling the stooges to the witness stand qualifies as this trope on its own, but it gets even sillier.
* In a [[Whitest Kids U Know]] skit, the defense asserts that today is [[Opposite Day]] when faced with irrefutable evidence. [[Hilarity Ensues]].
* Every time Lightman ends up in courtroom in ''[[Lie to Me (TV series)|Lie to Me]]''. Given that he usually gets removed from the room, it appears that he just can't help himself.
** He also likes messing with his lawyer ex-wife, who is usually in the courtroom with him.
* ''[[The Monkees]]'': In "The Picture Frame", Mike, Micky, and Davy make a very thorough mockery of the court system.
* ''[[Perry Mason]]'' was notorious, [[In
* One episode of ''[[
* The title characters of ''[[
* One of Jeff's from ''[[
* In ''[[Just Cause (TV series)|Just Cause]]'', Whit gets a possibly senile court-appointed client who refuses to speak except through a dummy. So he calls the ''dummy'' to the witness stand.
* ''[[Sue Thomas:
▲== Radio ==
* Parodied in ''You'll Have Had Your Tea: The Doings of Hamish and Dougal'' episode "The Poison-Pen Letters":
{{quote|
==
* 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]] ==▼
* The point and appeal of the ''[[
▲== Video Games ==
▲* The point and appeal of the ''[[Ace Attorney (Visual Novel)|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.
*** The tradition continues into the fourth game, which has an entirely new cast. Of note is the main prosecutor, who doubles as a rock star. At one point he even doubles the 'penalty' (damage) the player will receive by ''air guitaring''.
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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|
'''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 ==
* ''[[South Park]]'' skewered it with the "[[Chewbacca Defense]]" ([
▲* 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]]" ([http://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.
* Parodied in the courtroom episode of ''[[Clerks (
** Randal calls a series of "surprise witnesses" during Dante's trial. All of the witnesses are directors of movies Randal didn't like, and he demands refunds from each of them. After he's finished, the witnesses leave, without ever saying a single word that has to do with the trial's actual proceedings. He also calls a girl to the witness stand just to get her phone number.
** The prosecuting lawyer has Dante questioned by a pair of giggling girls, and plays the tapes of a completely unrelated prank call made by Jay and Randal.
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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."
* ''[[Harvey Birdman, Attorney
* In one episode of ''[[Rugrats]]'', Angelica sues her parents for feeding her broccoli. Once in court, she instantly wins over the judge, calls her doll Cynthia and her stuffed zebra as witnesses, and the jury awards her all of her parents assets without even deliberating. It turns out that the episode was [[All Just a Dream]] of Drew's.
* Lampshaded in ''[[King of the Hill]]'' when Hank is at a workman's comp hearing after being accused of faking a back injury because he was photographed after Yoga cured him. He asks permission to call in a suprise witness (his Yoga instructor, who proceeds to prance around, accuse the officials of having bad energy, and hit on the secretary) leading the chairman to remark that they'd never had anyone call in surprise witnesses before. [[Played Straight]] several times with [[Right
{{quote|
** Notable that there [
* ''[[
* An episode of ''[[Jimmy Two
== [[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
* [
* The above example in the Scopes
* 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).
* [
* A big part of the reason Saddam Hussein's trial went on for as long as it did was because he would always delay the proceedings with rants and the like. Since he was pretty much already a lock for either life in prison or death, what's the worse the judge could do? [[Department of Redundancy Department|Throw him in prison?]]
* [[Judge Judy]] will often disrupt the proceedings to offer candid and irrelevant opinions about her clients or society in general. She's not above asking clients non-rhetorical questions and then shouting them down when they try to answer.
** Which really doesn't figure into this trope, as "Judge" Judy is actually acting as an arbiter and her "courtroom" isn't actually a court of law. She can do whatever she damned well pleases as long as it's within the scope of the arbitration agreement (which is just a contractual agreement between two parties to comply with the decision of a third party).
* John Allen Muhammad, one half of the infamous [
* ''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.
{{reflist}}
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