Procedural Inaccuracies


Ok, so I'm watching this movie right now and it's very good but I feel hesitant about calling it great because it takes a few serious liberties with the judicial process. The first one that comes to mind is the scene where Spencer Tracy cross examines the opposing counsel. This is simply ludicrous. I'm in law school and while I know never to say never when it comes to what can happen in courtroom, there are very clear evidentiary and ethical rules prohibiting a lawyer from being cross examined on his own case. This basically means that the lawyer is testifying against his own client! The notion is laughable even if you aren't in law school. Just think about it. The only thing I can think of is, given the sheer uniqueness of the crime and subject matter of the case, maybe some judge would allow it thinking that such a unique case required special rules but it would be immediately overturned on appeal. Secondly, and perhaps more fundamentally, they weren't even in federal court. This they mentioned in the movie so I don't put too much emphasis on it, but Dick York was being charged with violating a law. He clearly violated the law and a criminal court couldn't find any other way. His only out would be to have the law's validity challenged and the validity of that law could only be challenged in federal court, certainly not criminal court. I'm surprised that for such a high profile movie, the studio didn't care to hire even a law student like myself to give the script a once over.

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you are forgetting a few things.
1. its a movie
2. its a movie based on a play that is a work of FICTION
3. the movie is set in a town where the law is obviously corrupt and in a unothodox court setting

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experienced

from your comments, i am positive you did not graduate, so i hardly think the producers or anyone else for that matter could care less, get my drift nurd? You seem to have forgotten how many expert witnesses were not allowed to testify? is that justice? i agree with the other chap who replied to your bellyaching irrelevant and inmaterial comments, objection overruled lol
itaipu4

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Spencer Tracy cross examines the opposing counsel. This is simply ludicrous. I'm in law school and while I know never to say never when it comes to what can happen in courtroom, there are very clear evidentiary and ethical rules prohibiting a lawyer from being cross examined on his own case... The notion is laughable even if you aren't in law school.


In the original Scopes trial, William Jennings Bryan did take the stand and was examined by the opposing counsel


I'm surprised that for such a high profile movie, the studio didn't care to hire even a law student like myself to give the script a once over.


You obviously have most of your work ahead of you and the studio would probably go for an expert in law, as it stood in 1925 rather than someone who doesn't seem to know anything about one of the most famous trials in history




"By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out" Dawkins

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Bryan was called to give expert testimony on the Bible. He was given the option of declining to testify, but assumed that as long as questions were limited to the Bible, that he would not be gving damaging testimony against his case.

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Perhaps you should study history, rather than law. In the actual Scopes trial, Darrow did call Bryan to the stand, Bryan did accept, and they did fight it out, almost exactly as they do in the movie. That wasn't an invention of Hollywood. Darrow was out to make a nullification argument in the trial, which he often did. Juries can do that.

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