This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Fanra: Did a total fix up of this page. Here is the old stuff in case someone wants to put some of it back:
Hollywood Law refers to a fictitious legal situation which in no way resembles the actual legal system in the place portrayed, but rather is played up for dramatic purposes. Examples include characters winding up behind bars at the drop of a hat—supposedly "legitimately" (vs. false arrest or corruption)—for reasons that simply cannot carry such a punishment in the real world, for the actions in question.
Other situations involve a character being "sued," with this in itself being inflated into a disastrous situation—even for a completely frivolous case.
While both of these situations can be stressful in real life, they are considerably more elastic in fiction. Typically these plots serve to carry a plot moral or other device; however they serve as tropes in that they claim to portray reality while exaggerating the actual legal system. Even legal shows (i.e. stories about law and lawyers) are notorious for taking dramatic license with the law, in order to create drama.
For example, the actual American criminal system first requires that a prosecutor's office investigate and pursue criminal charges against a suspect; before asking for an indictment, the prosecutor must show, before a judge if not before a grand jury, that there is probable suspicion that the suspect committed all of the specific parts, or "elements," of a particular criminal statute. Likewise, a civil lawsuit first requires the plaintiff's lawyer to make reasonable inquiry into the facts of the situation. In both of these cases, frivolous charges will typically be thrown out immediately by the court, if not by the lawyers themselves.
On the other extreme, cold-blooded killers are set free for absurd "technicalities" which would have no bearing on a case in real life.
But the legal system is a favorite source of drama, and hence Hollywood Law tends to serve the plot over any realism.
See also: Amoral Attorney
Common tropes:
- The Legal Victim
Here, the character is wrongfully imprisoned or sued, or otherwise threatened with such. This creates a dramatic situation which is unacceptable or unfair to the person. However, the situation also distorts the truth of the legal system, in that the writers either didn't research the situation—or deliberately ignored it in order to suit the plot.
- The Strip Search
This presents a person being subjected to humiliating police-procedures (such as strip searches, cavity searches etc). as a humorous or punitive plot device. Typically such procedures are reserved for persons with a proven record of smuggling weapons, and are limited to such; however Hollywood tropes typically extend this to all persons for dramatic effect.
- Prison Rape
In reality, prison sex is almost always voluntary, but is blamed on "rape" by convicts in order to deny voluntary homosexuality, as well as to present themselves as victims. Likewise, actual prison rape results in an automatic constitutional appeal for the victim, as well as legal recourse against the state. However, prison rape is often used to invoke fear or Poetic Justice, or for Dark Humor.
- I sincerely hope the above was written with a sense of irony and not as fact. Rape in prison is RAPE, not voluntary sex masquerading as rape. Perhaps anyone who thinks differently should spend some time at one of our lovely prisons here in Texas. We have the highest rate of prison rape in the nation.
- The Cornered Stool Pigeon
This trope involves a lawyer who "corners" a lying witness, catching him or her in a lie and calling on it; in response, the witness breaks down and confesses everything on the spot—while the witness's lawyer looks on and says nothing. This often involves a lawyer badgering and bullying the witness into said confession. In real life, a witness will typically stick to their story even when caught in a lie, or the opposing counsel will intervene, and the court will sustain.
- The Ambush
Similar to The Cornered Stool Pigeon, this involves the "hero" lawyer "ambushing" a testifying suspect by introducing hitherto unknown evidence, which absolutely proves the suspect to be guilty; in response, the suspect again breaks down and confesses everything. In real life, court rules prevent this; such evidence would typically be thrown out, since attorneys are required to share all evidence.
- The Deus Ex Machina Judge
While judges are typically held to scrutiny for their actions, the Deus Ex Machina Judge is always on the side of the "hero" attorney, "sustaining" all of his motions/objections etc, and "overruling" all objections of the other side. Such judges are typically shallowly disguised Moral Guardians.
- The Hanging Judge
The polar opposite of the Deus Ex Machina Judge, the Hanging Judge always rules against the "hero attorney," carrying out a miscarriage of justice. The Hanging Judge is almost always a disguised villain.
- Off On A Technicality:
Here a ruthless criminal—typically a killer—is released on a "technicality" (i.e. a meaningless legal slip-up in bureaucratic procedure) despite being proven absolutely guilty of the heinous crime in question. This trope serves to spark cheap outrage at an obvious miscarriage of justice—as well as outrage and disrespect at the legal system in general. In reality, such "loopholes" are not the result of mere obscure legal games, but rather are due to serious policy concerns such as sloppy police work or vague legal definitions, or serious rights violations by police or prosecutors; meanwhile actual "technicalities" are typically overruled as such. Though portrayed by Hollywood as a common occurrence, these are rare instances.
- Specifically, this subtrope ignores the distinction between Harmless Error and Reversible Error.
- The Super Lawyer
In reality, a case typically turns on the merits, and is typically settled without trial. However the Hollywood Trope of the Super Lawyer, gives the impression that a (i.e. every case) case turns solely on the skill or knowledge, trickery/ruthlessness etc. of the lawyer in question. In reality, this is usually only true only because a good lawyer will only accept a case which has merit—or will find/present such merits where other lawyers will not. However the trope typically paints such a lawyer—as with any successful lawyer (other than those who are the main characters)—as a cheap con artist who simply distorts the truth with lies, chicanery, or other dishonest tactics, ruthlessly doing anything at all in order to win his case.
- The "Dream Team" Lawyer
Closely related to this is the typical scenario in which a rich and powerful criminal will simply use his "big bucks" to hire a big-name lawyer, who then comes to the scene and allows the crook to get away with murder, theft, or otherwise render the villain "above the law"—and thus validating the hero by "forcing" him/her into "taking the law into his own hands" in the interests of justice.
- There is some limited Truth In Television here. The key is Dream *Team*, the strategy is to churn up so much work for the other side (usually a Plaintiff's attorney working on contingency) that they are forced to accept a settlement.
- "My Hands are Tied"
Here, indifferent bureaucrats such as police, judges or other persons in government, refuse to help a Legal Victim, claiming that "there's nothing they can do" (often against an obvious injustice). While type of this situation can exist (as with domestic violence), it's typically exaggerated solely to spark outrage in the audience.
- "Do you see the person who assaulted you in this court?"
In this case, a prosecutor usually asks the victim of a crime whether the person they saw hitting them, or running from the scene of the robbery, etc, etc, is present in court. It is usually followed by the witness pointing out the accused person. To be fair this used to happen a lot in courts back in the fifties or so, but in most Western countries prosecutors don't ask this question, and judges don't allow it, mostly because the witness invariably points out the accused in the dock or sitting next to the defence lawyer — regardless of whether they were the person the witness saw, and in a number of cases when it was impossible that the witness could have seen them. So many convictions have been overturned on this ground alone that the "dock identification", as this is called, is avoided by most courts.
Peteman: Can no consequences of filing a false police report be added? I remember in Transformers Animated Porter C Powel claiming no crimes were committed (since they had done their stuff on international territory, on vessels owned by his company, to beings that didn't have rights). He seemed to gloss over the part where his employee had filed a false police report, and likely could have been busted for potentially causing a panic.
Granted, it is a misdemeanor.
Silver2195: Removed disgusting pile of Natter for To Kill A Mockingbird.
Slatz Grobnik: Cut this, but putting it here to avoid the temptation of natter. It gives all the wrong impressions:
- After the bookkeeper's testimony, the Judge orders the bailiff to switch his jury with the jury hearing a divorce case next door. Divorce trials are never held in front of a jury; they are always judge-tried.
- In the 1930s, before the advent of no-fault divorce, divorce trials were occasionally held before a jury.
- After the bookkeeper's testimony, the Judge orders the bailiff to switch his jury with the jury hearing a divorce case next door. Divorce trials are never held in front of a jury; they are always judge-tried.
Principally speaking, all divorce trials are bench trials. It's not true that no-fault divorce changed that. There are only a handful of jurisdictions where the sides can call a jury for a divorce proceeding. The jury's role is almost always in a limited fashion. In fact, it's more of a recent thought to give more of the decision on the jury, rather than something that we've moved away from like fault divorce.
But here's where it gets obnoxious. Illinois is one of those states that allows some jury involvement. Additionally, there are parts to fault divorce that make calling in a jury more common than in non-fault.
- In another episode of the original, Mc Coy decides to charge a gun manufaturer with murder on the dubious grounds that they did not make their product difficult enough to modify for full-auto fire. After the jury reached a verdict of guilty, the judge said "The evidence is not up to my standards, so the verdict is nullified." That is only possible in an appellate court. The trial judge has no power to set aside a verdict.
I removed this because a trial judge can do exactly that, if there exists sufficient cause. The prosecutor can appeal the judge's decision, however.
macroscopic: Removed a couple flimsy examples:
- In another episode, she drugs Drew, kidnaps him, and abandons him in China to die— and in another episode she frames him for insanity through deliberate trickery. While this would put anyone away for life, somehow the writers think that Cleveland, Ohio is a place where laws don't apply.
(This is Karma Houdini.)
- The Ace Attorney games...let's start with the fact that every case can only go on for three days and go from there. To be fair, the game is based on the Japanese legal system, as opposed to the American legal system. This makes the game seems to be a bit strange for us who don't know the Japanese legal system, yet are (somewhat) familiar with the American legal system.
- They're also set 20 Minutes into the Future, which helps explain some of it.
(The world != America. I still don't know if this is accurate Japanese law, though.)
