There is a dramatic moment in the movie 12 Angry Men when our protagonist dispels the assumption that the murder weapon is unique by pulling out an identical knife and throwing it down on the table. He explains that he had done a little extra investigation on his own the previous evening and then purchased the duplicate.
What initiative! What jury misconduct!
In a popular television series, an attorney finds out her client is guilty and tricks him into admitting it on the stand.
Justice is served; attorney ethics be damned.
In another series, the lawyer is upset that the court-appointed guardian is stealing the ward’s money. He hires a thug to break into the guardian’s house, tie him up and threaten him. The guardian repents and gives back the money.
The good guys win again — by committing criminal acts!
These aren’t isolated instances. In almost every genre of fiction involving lawyers, there are rampant violations of the code of ethics, of the rules of civil procedure, even of basic legal concepts.
You say: So? Everyone knows fiction isn’t reality. Engineers don’t get upset when a fictional character makes a suit of iron and flies around saving people. Why should anyone care if a few fictional lawyers and judges cross the line?
The answer is simple: because people understand they can’t fly in an iron suit, but they don’t understand the complex maze of laws, rules and codes that govern a legal proceeding. Often the only standard they have is what they have seen or read for entertainment. So they adopt fictional behavior as their model, with disastrous results.
Examples abound. A judge in New York had to declare a mistrial when jurors used a smartphone to do their own research during deliberations. Another case was thrown into turmoil when jurors texted each other during the trial. Several years ago, a beneficiary of an estate decided that he didn’t like the court-appointed attorney, so he pulled a gun and chased him around the courthouse lawn.
It is true that if legal fiction was constrained by the law, it would be the bleakest of entertainment.
But that works both ways. If the law worked like fiction, then we would have the bleakest of legal systems.
