Academic

My Cousin Vinny Strikes Again

By Rob Heverly

After Justice Scalia's recent remarks indicating that "My Cousin Vinny" is his favorite movie, the film appears again in a Seventh Circuit opinion [pdf] relating to an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Defendant's counsel was held in contempt and jailed for a night (for repeatedly eliciting testimony relating to defendant's allegedly exculpatory statements to police).

Sounds a bit like "My Cousin Vinny," except the lawyer here claims that he got only three hours of sleep while in lock-up, and that this deprived him of the ability to represent his client. In a footnote, Seventh Circuit Judge Bauer compares the situation to the movie:

Defense counsel?s obstinate behavior and the court?s exasperation with it may be reminiscent for some of the contentious interplay between the fictional characters of Vincent LaGuardia Gambini and Judge Chamberlain Haller in the film ?My Cousin Vinnie.? On three separate occasions during trial, Judge Haller held Vinnie in contempt and, each time, made him spend the overnight recess in jail. However, unlike defense counsel here, Vinnie, a New York lawyer struggling to adapt to the rural-Alabama trial setting, found that the accommodations in jail offered the best night?s sleep he could find away from the Big Apple. Upon his return to the courtroom, a revitalized Vinnie dismantled the credibility of the State?s circumstantial case and cleared the names of the ?two yutes? he represented. (And again we see that life follows art).

I love this movie, too, and it's fun to see it showing up in a burst in legal culture. Now if we could only get a footnote saying how much the judge likes Marisa Tormei, we'd be all set.

FYI, judge finds contempt about 1:05 minute or so into the video above.

HT: ABA Journal Daily News.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on September 16, 2009 (boomark / email).