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| Attendees at Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys Summer Training |
Just
returned from Lake Chelan, Washington where the Washington Prosecuting
Attorneys Association conducted its Summer Training. My subject once again was “Great
Cross-Examinations and Techniques” and the lessons are drawn from great
cross-examinations in history and in the movies. As usual it was well received
because of the subject matter. Also, we play trivial pursuits and I give away
Cross-Examination Handbook as a
prize, among others.
As
part of the course materials, I provide the attendees (shown above with the
great David McEachran the Watcom County Prosecutor standing – he’s in his last
year and heading towards retirement) with a list of 4-Star Movie Favorites,
many of which contain classic cross-examinations. Here is the list:
ADVOCACY GOES TO THE
MOVIES
4-Star Movie
Favorites
Ronald H. Clark
A Civil Action
(Paramount, 1998, Directed by Steven Zaillian)
Based on Jonathan Harr’s book A
Civil Action. The case upon which
the book and movie are based is Anne Anderson, et al., v. Cryovac, Inc., et
al. 96 F.R.D. 431. The case involves
the polluting of the Woburn, Massachusetts water supply with toxins which
results in the deaths of the townspeople.
The citizens hire Jan
Schlichtmann to sue. See the
movie The Verdict, below, for the
connection between Schlichtmann and the author of the book upon which The Verdict was based. My co-author, Marilyn J. Berger, produced
three educational documentary films in the series, Lessons from Woburn. The Untold Stories" with
Henry Wigglesworth. The films have been
used in over 100 law schools.
A Few Good Men (Castle Rock Entertainment, 1992, Directed by Rob Reiner) The movie is based on a play by David Sorkin who got the idea from his sister who was in Navy JAG went to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base to defend marines who almost killed a fellow Marine in a hazing ordered by a superior officer.
A Time to Kill (Warner Brothers,
1996, Directed by Joel Schumacher) Based on a John Grisham novel.
Amistad (Dream Works 1997, Directed by Stephen Spielberg) Anthony
Hopkins won the Academy Award for playing John Quincy Adams. Amistad involves trials centering on an 1838
rebellion on a Spanish slave ship, the Amistad.
A federal trial court decided
that the initial transport of the African slaves was illegal and that the
Africans were free, not slaves. Former
President John Quincy Adams argued before the United States Supreme Court which
affirmed the lower court’s finding. In
1842, the Africans went home.
Anatomy Of A
Murder (Columbia Pictures, 1959, Directed by Otto
Preminger, music by Duke Ellington) Movie is based on a best selling novel by
Robert Travers. Travers was the pen name
of John Volker, prosecutor, fisherman, and a Michigan Supreme Court judge from
1957-1959. Jimmy Stewart wins Best Actor
Academy Award. The inspiration for the
book was the 1952 Big Bay Michigan Lumberjack Tavern murder trial. The defendant killed the tavern's proprietor,
Mike Chenowith, claiming that Chenowith had raped his wife.
Bananas
(MGM, 1971, Directed by Woody Allen) The scene where cross-examines himself is
a classic.
Caine
Mutiny (Columbia Pictures, 1954)
Best Actor Academy Award to Humphrey Bogart, based on Pulitzer Prize
winning novel by Herman Wouk.
Chicago (Miramax, 2003, Directed by Rob
Marshall), Academy Award for Best Movie in 2003. Chicago was a 1927 play, which became a 1927 silent film, a 1942 romantic comedy film Roxie Hart, the 1975 stage musical Chicago, and then the 2002 movie musical. Chicago concerns two women convicted
murderer who are on death row together in Jazz-age Chicago. The inspirations for the play and then movies
were the murder trials of two women, Belva Gaertner and Beulah Annan, both of
whom were acquitted at trial.
Erin
Brockovich (Universal
Films, 2000, Directed by Steven
Soderbergh) Erin Brochovich, a legal assistant, goes after Pacific
Gas and Electric Company for polluting the water supply. Julia Roberts wins the Academy Award for Best
Actress and the real Erin Brochovich appears in the movie as a waitress. Literary
license is taken in the film:
Massey’s partner, not Massey, represented Brochovich in the automobile
accident case and Brochovich was Miss Pacific Coast, not Miss Wichita.
Freck
Point Trial (Aspen Publications,
Directed by Gretchen Ludwig) This movie
is a trial advocacy training film with veteran actors doing everything from jury
selection through closing argument. The
movie comes with the book Trial Advocacy:
Planning, Analysis and Strategy by Berger, Mitchell and Clark. For more information visit – www.aspenadvocacybooks.com
Inherit the Wind (United Artists, 1960, Directed by Stanley Kramer, who also directed Judgment at Nuremberg) The movie is based on the Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee 1955 play. It is inspired by the 1925 trial of John T. Scopes who was convicted of teaching Dawin’s theory of evolution in a Tennessee high school science class (hence called “The Scopes Monkey Trial.” Scopes was ordered to pay a minimum fine. The play liberally drew from the transcripts. Scopes was represented by Clarence Darrow, and William Jennings Bryan prosecuted.
Judgment at Nuremberg (Roxlom, 1961, Directed by Stanley Kramer who also directed Inherit the Wind). Maximilian Schell won the Academy Award for Best Actor. The actual Katzenberger trial was a subplot of this movie. In a Nazi show trial, Leo Katzenberger, a Jewish businessman and Nuremberg community leader was convicted of having an affair with a young Aryan woman, and sentenced to death. During the Nuremburg trials, the presiding judge at the Katzenberger trial was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Legally Blonde (MGM, 2001, Directed by Robert Luketik).
Murder
on a Sunday Morning (Direct
Cinema, 2003, Directed by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade) Academy Award winning
documentary, Documentary about a murder in Jacksonville, Florida.
My Cousin
Vinny (20th Century Fox, 1992, Directed by Jonathan
Lynn). Marisa Tomei
an Oscar
for Best Supporting Actress. The writer, Dale Launer, explains the
inspirations for the script as follows on his website:
The next movie was one he wrote and produced - an original screenplay
called HIS COUSIN, VINNY. This was one of his very first movie ideas - inspired
by the fact that some lawyer in California took 13 attempts to finally pass the
bar exam.
He took
a trip down south to do story research, starting in New Orleans, where he
picked up a car, drove up through Mississippi, over to Alabama and down to the
gulf coast. Along the way his car got stuck in the mud - which he worked into
the story. He also noticed grits on every menu - which also got worked into the
story. He stopped in the town of Butler, knocked on the door of the district
attorney and had a chat with the deputy DA who reminded him of actor Lane
Smith. This character found its way into the story (and Lane Smith played the
part in the movie). Launer noticed they have gigantic cockroaches down there
and that was massaged into a scene, but the director took it out for reasons
that still mystify Launer. A screech owl too made it into the story. Everyone
he met was very friendly and helpful, but when he told them he was making a
movie that took place in the south - they'd get very concerned - afraid that
Hollywood movies always made them look like bumpkins. That too woven weaved
into the story.
Philadelphia (Clinica Estetico, 1993, Directed by Jonathan Demme). Tom Hanks wins Oscar for Best Actor. The movie is based on the 1987 Geoffrey Bowers, suit against the law firm Baker & McKenzie for unfair dismissal in an AIDS discrimination case.
Place in the Sun (Paramount Pictures, 1951, Directed by George Stevens, who won an Oscar for Best Director) The movie is based on An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser. The book was inspired by the 1906 murder case in which Chester Gillette was convicted of killing Grace Brown, his ex-girl friend who was pregnant and wanted Gillette to marry her. The murder took place in upstate New York at Big Moose Lake where Gillette took Brown out on a boat, hit over the head with a tennis racket, leaving her to drown. In 1908, Gillette was electrocuted.
Rainmaker (Paramount Pictures, 1997), Directed by Francis Ford Coppola) It’s based on a John Grisham novel.
The
Case Against 8 (HBO 2014) Directed by Ben Cotner and Ryan White who won
the Directing Award: U.S. Documentary at the
Sundance Film Festival for their work on the film. This documentary
recounts the legal fight to overturn California’s Proposition 8 which only
permitted marriage between a man and a woman. David Boies and Theodore Olson
are featured.
The
Fugitive (Warner Brothers, 1993, Directed by Andrew Davis), Tommy Lee
Jones won the Oscar for playing Deputy United States Marshal Samuel
Gerard. The movie is based on the
popular television series by the same name, starring David Jansen. The series was based upon the Sam Sheppard
case. Sheppard was convicted of killing
his wife and sentenced in 1954 to prison.
However, his conviction was overturned by the United States Supreme Court
because of the prejudicial pretrial publicity.
F. Lee Bailey represented Sheppard who in 1966 was acquitted at the
retrial.
The Pelican
Brief (Warner Brothers, 1993, Directed by Alan J. Paluka,
who also directed the Presumed Innocent,
based on best-selling novel by lawyer Scott Turow). Pelican Brief is based on a Grisham novel.
The
Shooting of Big Man (Creative Common Sense, 1979, Directed by Eric F.
Saltzman) Documentary of a assault with
intent to kill case from arrest through trial in Seattle, Washington in 1979.
The
Staircase (Sundance, 2004, Director - Jean-Xavier de Lestrade),
Documentary about a murder in Durham, North Carolina.
The Verdict (20th Century Fox, 1982, Directed by Sidney Lumet
who also directed Twelve Angry Men) The 1980 book on which The Verdict movie was based was written by Barry Reed, a
Massachusetts’s lawyer, with screen play by David Mamet. Barry Reed was a mentor to Jan Schlichtmann, who was the
trial lawyer who filed suit against W. R. Grace and Beatrice Co. over the contaminated drinking water deaths in Woburn, Massachusetts. The case was written about in the book A Civil Action and later made into a
movie by the same name.
Twelve Angry Men (United Artists, 1957) Directed by Sidney Lumet who also directed The Verdict).
Witness
for the Prosecution (United Artists, 1957) Directed by Billy Wilder and
starring among others Marlene Deitrich and Charles Laughten. This is a
courtroom drama set in the Old Bailey which was adapted from a play by Agatha
Christie.
Young Mr. Lincoln (20th Century Fox, 1939, Directed by John Ford). Although the movie is about Abe’s first case after he began practicing law in 1837, the movie trial is actually based on one of his much later cases from 1857. In that case, Lincoln’s client Duff Armstrong was charged with murdering James Metzker. Lincoln, using judicial notice, established that the eye witness Charles Allen’s testimony was false because the witness could not, as he claimed, have seen the shooting at a distance of 150 feet by moon light on that date according an almanac.
