a Criminal Deference Attorney and former prosecutor

with the Brooklyn DA's office.

- I've handled everything from simple drug possession

all the way up to homicides.

- [Presenter] Today, Elena is going to break down

what's right and wrong in some

of Hollywood's greatest court scenes.

[tense music]

- You can see I'm broadcasting from my living room.

The criminal justice world is also shut down

due to the Coronavirus.

So, our whole firm has been operating from our homes.

[machine whirs] [tense music]

First up, The Dark Knight.

- Heads I'll take it, tails he's all yours.

- Oh yeah?

You wanna flip a coin to see who leads?

- No one ever flips a coin in the middle

of trial to figure out who is first chair,

meaning lead attorney, or who's second chair,

meaning co-council but co-council in a junior capacity.

Trials are incredibly stressful,

and as much as you can plan ahead, you do.

- With Carmine Falcone in Arkham

someone must have stepped up to run the so called family.

Is that man in this court room today?

- So, the witnesses are actually not permitted

at trial to give their answer by nodding

or by shaking their head.

If the witness had done so,

the attorney that was asking the questions

would have made a record saying

"I see you nodding your head up and down,

"what do you mean by that?"

Because there is a stenographer that takes down

word for word the testimony that is given.

- Maroni?

He's a fall guy.

I'm the brains of the organization.

[audience laughs]

- [Judge] Order.

- [Lawyer] Permission to treat the witness as hostile.

- [Judge] Granted.

- Asking the judge to treat the witness as hostile

means that instead of asking them open ended questions

like you would do on a direct examination of your witness,

you ask the judge for permission to ask yes or no questions,

and that way you limit whatever the witness is able

to say with limiting him or her to yes or no responses.

- Hostile?

I'll show you hostile! [audience gasps]

[witness groans]

- So, I would say it's probably impossible,

maybe nearly impossible, to get a gun into a courtroom.

Attorneys in federal court actually have it way worse

than you probably do through TSA pre-check.

They scan all of your belongings,

they take away all of your electronics with the exception

of maybe a single cell phone,

if you have a special pass for it.

You go through metal detectors, you get wanded,

and it's a very secure environment.

I haven't heard of a single case where someone was able

to bring a gun in to either state

or federal court in New York.

[machine whirs] [tense music]

Next up is Legally Blonde.

- Get up.

- What?

- You're fired.

I have new representation.

- So, firing you lawyer mid trial

is probably the silliest thing you could do.

If you have any sort of concerns about your representation

or how things are going,

that should all be taken care of before trial.

[gentle music]

As much as I love Elle Woods, the attire is absolutely

not accurate as to what attorneys wear in real life.

There's no sandals allowed in court,

and even if you wear a dress,

you're still required to wear some sort

of blazer or jacket over it.

Could've been pink, but she was missing a jacket.

- Your honor, rule 3.03 of the Supreme Judicial Court

states that a law student may appear

on behalf of a defendant in criminal proceedings.

- This is very inaccurate.

This would never happen.

No law student would be allowed

to conduct a cross examination

of the most important witness on a homicide trial

without ever doing a cross examination

or any sort of trial work beforehand.

The first case that I tried, I still remember this,

it was a search warrant with a crack rock in the bedsheets.

It's baby steps.

- Had you ever gotten a perm before?

- Yes.

- How many would you say?

- Two a year since I was 12.

You do the math.

- You know, a girl in my sorority Tracy Marcinko

got a perm once.

- So, you do not get to talk about yourself

or tell stories when you're in a trial.

You're not allowed to do this during jury selection,

or your opening, and especially not

when you're examining a witness.

- If in fact you weren't washing your hair,

as I suspect you weren't because your curls are still

in tact, wouldn't you have heard the gunshot?

And if in fact you had head the gunshot,

Brooke Windham wouldn't have had time

to hide the gun before you got downstairs.

- As exciting as this is to be on a roll,

unfortunately you don't get to ask compound questions.

They have to get separated out.

- You however, had time to hide the gun, didn't you Chutney?

After you shot your father.

- I didn't mean to shoot him.

I thought it was you walking through the door!

- This is a very cinematic moment.

It hasn't happened in my professional career

where I've been able to break a witness down

to the point of confession.

And I can't think of a single colleague

that has gotten this accomplished.

[machine whirs] [tense music]

Next up, My cousin Vinny.

- Can you tell me,

what would the correct ignition timing be

on a 1955 Bel Air Chevrolet, with a 327 cubic inch engine,

and a full barrel carburetor?

- It's a bullshit question.

- Does that mean that you can't answer it?

- It's a bullshit question, it's impossible to answer.

- Impossible because you don't know the answer!

- Nobody could answer that question!

- So, I don't think any attorney would ever, ever,

get this close to a witness during their testimony,

because you, one, are invading their personal space,

and two, you're not really sure what reaction

you're going to get from them.

- Watch this.

- 'Cause Chevy didn't make a 327 in '55,

the 327 didn't come out until '62.

And it wasn't offered in the Bel Air

with a four barrel carb 'til '64.

- So, this is the number one thing

they teach you in law school,

and that's not to ask any questions

that you don't know the answer to,

especially when this is done at trial before a jury.

So, this is lawyering 101 gone bad.

[machine whirs] [tense music]

Next up, 12 Angry Men.

- Now, are you trying to tell me that this knife

really fell through a hole in the boy's pocket?

Someone picked it up off the street,

went to the boy's house and stabbed his father with it,

just to test it's sharpness?

- No, I'm just saying it's possible the boy

lost his knife and that somebody else stabbed his father

with a similar knife, it's just possible.

- So, this juror is doing what every defense attorney

wants him or her to do, and that's question the evidence

and hold the government to their burden.

This juror does not seem convinced that this knife

is so unique that there's no other plausible explanation

as to how the crime could have happened.

- [Man] Where did that come from?

[men shouting]

- Where did you get it?

- I went out walking for a couple of hours last night.

I walked through the boy's neighborhood.

I bought that in a little pawn shop

just two blocks from the boy's house.

- So, this is all sorts of bad.

One of the things that the judge says

is you're not allowed to do any additional research,

you can't read about the case,

you can't talk to anyone about the case,

you also can't go to the crime scene.

What this juror seemed to have done is actually gone out

to the crime scene to conduct his own investigation.

- You're asking us to believe that somebody else

did the stabbing with exactly the same kind of knife?

- The odds are a million to one.

- It's possible.

- But not very probable.

- So, the government's burden is beyond a reasonable doubt

and all the defense needs to do is have a shot

at there being some other possibility

or any other explanation.

So, defense has no burden in this case,

it's all on the government and it seems that the jurors here

are slowly becoming skeptical of the government's case.

[machine whirs] [tense music]

Up next, we have The Lincoln Lawyer.

- [Lawyer] You were with Miss Campo

on the night of March 6th?

- Yep.

We went on a date to the Association,

then I took her back to her place for another date.

- And did you have sexual relations?

- About 400 bucks worth.

She earned every single cent.

- In real life this would be a lot longer,

a lot more thought out.

This witness does not appear to be a sympathetic person

or someone that the jury would like.

If anything, the jury would think this guy's a sleazebag,

and if this is how he is behaving in court,

he may be responsible for hurting the woman

and for punching her.

That is not something that would happen in real life

because the prosecutor meets with the witnesses

a handful of times in order for the prosecutor

to kind of clean them up a little

and put forth the most presentable version

of the witness to the jury.

- When you left Mr Talbot, what condition was she in?

Was she hurt?

- No.

She was fine.

- She did not look like this?

- Man, what kind of sick bastard does something like that?

- So, as the defense attorney,

I would probably object to his characterization

of someone as a sick bastard,

that is incredibly prejudicial,

and what you're trying to do is for the jury

to make up their own mind rather than rely

on anybody else's characterization

of your client or the actions.

- Isn't it true that before you left Miss Campo's apartment

she asked you to repeatedly strike her

in the face with your left first?

- Your Honor, Mr. Haller is just muddying

the waters with outrageous statements.

- So, the defense job is to muddy the waters.

It's not necessarily to get your client in a huddle,

but every little bit helps.

If the jury's sitting there and they're thinking

"Well, there is another explanation for these injuries,"

and if you have the jury thinking

that something else may have happened,

you're getting closer and closer to either a hung jury

or to an outright acquittal,

if the jurors have doubts, they can't convict.

- Do you a prostitute named Shaquille Barton?

[laughs]