Welcome to a journey through the wild and unpredictable world of the courtroom. It doesn’t take long for what initially appears to be a routine courtroom to become a battlefield full of shocking revelations and unexpected twists. Join us as we delve into some of the most memorable moments ever shared by people on Reddit that took place inside the courtroom – from explosive outbursts to startling confessions.
I had a client who was accused of taking a young woman’s car and then crashing it/fleeing the scene. The girl testified at trial that she had given him the keys that night because she was drunk and “would never, ever drink and drive”. Apparently, she was not aware that I had requested and obtained a copy of her driving record which showed she received a DUI a month after the incident.
I still remember the look on her face when I handed her driving record to her and said “Except for that one time you got caught a month later, right?”
The look on the judge’s face was equally memorable.
Some years back my state passed a law saying all welfare mothers must ID the father of their kids to stay on welfare and will go after those fathers for child support, (so now I use fake names) my friend Tom gets a letter saying he must pay child support for a kid he fathered with Sally years ago the kid was 16 at the time, Tom knew nothing about this until that letter, Tom decides to be his own lawyer, of course, everyone tells him to get a real lawyer but he won’t do it, even the judge was willing to give him more time to get a lawyer but no.
So of course the prosecutor asks did you date and have sex with Sally? – yes
did you break up with Sally in July of 78? – yes
Next, Sally is asked the same questions and said yes, but now my friend gets to ask questions:
Sally, we broke up in July 78 right? – yes
When was the child born? April 12
What year was the child born? 1980
Your honor unless the prosecutor can explain how I fathered a child born over 18 months after we broke up…………… defense rest
I was trying a foreclosure case in front of a jury in a very progressive county that hates bank attorneys. I was the bank’s attorney. The defendant had been evasive and contradictory in depositions when questioned about her basis for not paying her mortgage for several years. Her answers ranged from “I didn’t know how” to “I paid it off” but couldn’t show the receipts, so to speak. At trial, I struggled with her on the stand and I was nervous the jury would just feel sorry for her and find against me out of the kindness of their hearts for this clearly unstable person. I finally got to the part where I asked her about the payments, not really sure what she would say. This time she said the mortgage was paid off. I asked who paid them. She said, loudly and proudly, “my man!” I asked who that was, and she said, “My attorney said not to say it because it makes me sound crazy, but BARACK OBAMA PAID MY MORTGAGE!” I almost peed my skirt suit.
Story from a friend of mine – he was defending a guy in court, don’t remember what he was charged with.
The main witness for the prosecution was on the stand and was asked if she could identify the defendant. She was scanning the courtroom & seemed confused – my friend was already silently celebrating because if she couldn’t identify him, he could probably get all charges dropped.
As he was mentally adding this case to the ‘win’ file, he happened to glance over at his client, who had just helpfully raised his hand to make it easier for her to identify him.
Even the judge facepalmed on that one.
I was a junior associate observing the deposition of a high-powered person in the entertainment industry. The attorney deposing him asked him to read part of a contract into the record, and the witness became combative and refused to do so. After refusing repeated requests to read the document into the record, the witness threw the document on the table and, exasperated, said, “I can’t read.”
From then on, the attorney read the documents into the record.
Lawyer here. During an order of protection hearing the 6’3″ muscular tattooed idiot told the judge that my 5’1″ female client deserved the black eye he gave her because she wouldn’t stop running her mouth. He actually expected the judge to be sympathetic or something. The second he admitted to hitting her the judge cut him off and said “Order of Protection granted. Next case.”
Obligatory not a lawyer, but I watched this unfold as the foreperson of a jury. The defendant decided to be his own lawyer; accused of pulling over and switching drivers in a car while being pursued by police for driving without a license while on probation for DUI (the officer pursuing was the same officer who arrested him for the original DUI). Playing Perry Mason, the defendant put his buddy on the stand and asked point blank, “Who was driving the car that day?” Buddy replied, “you mean before or after we switched drivers?”
It was all we could do to keep a straight face.
I was my own lawyer in court for a lawsuit. I’d say the most dramatic moment was when I pointed out that the metadata of the images revealed a discrepancy of several months. This was pointed out before the court in the documents shared with the other party but nobody in the courtroom had any knowledge of what metadata was before I started talking.
Sat in the public gallery at a bail hearing for a man accused of heinous crimes against a very, very young female relative. The judge started laying out the conditions of bail and one of them was to surrender his passport. The man turned to his attorney and said, loudly, words to the effect of; “But you said I could fly back to my home country…”
The judge stopped himself and revoked the man’s bail.
The case: Icy day here in Austria. A woman enters a shop, and slips on the stairs, hurting her ankle. There is no law that you have to permanently remove the ice from the entrance stairs though (so no ex delicto). But the access to the shop being without danger is one of the c.i.c. duties of a business owner and therefore the woman sues the shop for her broken ankle. (please bear in mind, that the sums for claimable damages here in Austria are really low compared to the US and she would have only gotten maybe 1000-2000$ from it, depending on how long she has been in pain). Civil courts here in Austria have very much interest in solving these cases by getting an agreement among the parties. So the business owner (a clothes shop) offers her (don’t know the exact amount) something around 500$ in vouchers to settle all this. To this the woman just replies: “What should I do with these? I NEVER buy anything at this shop anyways”. And this was the exact moment she lost the case. She just said she never intended to buy anything there, so no possible contract, and therefore no culpa in contrahendo for the shop owner. She left the courtroom with nothing but the bills for both lawyers.
Standing outside of the courtroom, first on the docket. The matter is for a divorce order, after having to get substituted service because the other party was hiding out in another country. Client says to me “Oh, I think I am already divorced in [country]. I got some papers a month ago.” The matter is called 30 seconds later. I explain to the judge that I’ve just been told this at the door. Judge gives me a look that is half piteous, half “are you f*cking kidding me?”, then reschedules the matter with instructions to confirm whether the client was divorced elsewhere. Turns out that they were.
The client proceeded to leave a bad review because we couldn’t get her a divorce order, despite the fact she was already divorced.
I had a guy once who had been kicked out of a bar. He was overly intoxicated and he kept berating the bouncers who refused to let him back in. The bouncers called the police, I arrive, and I end up calling the guy a cab, hoping he’ll just call it a night. He continues to yell at the bouncers while we wait for the cab, and everyone’s patience is wearing thin. When the cab arrives, he refuses to get in and tells us all to f*ck off. I ended up having to arrest him and charge him with disorderly conduct.
His trial date comes up, and he chooses to represent himself. The prosecutor has me on the stand, and I testify to his behavior, his obvious intoxication, my attempt to resolve the situation without arrest, etc. Now it’s his turn to cross-examine me. Here’s how it went:
Him: Officer, on the night that you arrested me, did you read me my rights?
Me: No, I did not.
Him: Your honor, I rest my case.
The judge just looked at him with his head in his hands.
Public defender, doing a felony assault case with a twist – victim claimed that the very unique assault incident happened twice, identically, two days in a row (so imagine she claimed he threatened her with an icicle and she called her sister and the sister told her to eat a fruit snack or whatever but two days in a row).
During direct she was adamant that things happened this way twice, yes it sounds crazy, yes but it happened, yes she was so scared and he assaulted her etc. She sounds pretty believable and I’m starting to get worried.
Cross examination – I start asking questions to set her up for impeachment. Finally, I ask ‘(victim name here) are we supposed to believe that these unbelievably made-up sounding things, happened to you not once but twice?
Then she quietly says ‘yes’ and I push ‘yes, what?’
“yes I made it up”
This admission put me in such shock I didn’t even know what to say. I asked a few more questions and sat down and the DA futilely attempted to redirect the question as if I had intimidated her. The client walked on the felonies but went down on a misdemeanor time served assault even after all of this. But I never again had a victim admit they were making things up on the stand.
I was a character witness for my childhood dog in a civil trial between our neighbors and my parents. Opposing counsel was questioning me, I wasn’t even out of elementary school at the time, and he asked if our dog was aggressive. She was a rottweiler and very loving and incredibly protective of me and my siblings. His final question to me is one I will never forget. He asked, “Did your father tell you what to say before you came into court today?” I responded “Yes.” Then he asked, “What did he tell you to say?” I said “The truth.” Now I was too young to remember the courtroom reaction, but according to my father the judge audibly guffawed and the opposing counsel lost all the wind out of his sails.
The plaintiff in a lawsuit sued my client, a local newspaper, for publishing a dimly lit, distanced photo of a man on a street corner. The story was about male prostitution. The male plaintiff said the photo was of him and he sued because he was defamed by being labeled a prostitute.
At the end of the plaintiff’s deposition, he was shown a document detailing a conviction for prostitution. The question: “did you pay the fine or do the time?” He said, “I did the time.”
His lawyer immediately called for a break, then proceeded to freak out, saying the guy had lied to him, that he took the case on a contingency basis (meaning he would get paid unless his client won), and that he was withdrawing as counsel. The case was withdrawn shortly thereafter.
I’m arguing a motion for summary judgment in front of a judge who has never ruled my way on anything ever. I was expecting to go home with nothing. He’s holding the hearing in chambers so we’re all sitting around a conference table.
I make my arguments and say, “and I have six recent cases all supporting this.”
He says, “And you brought cases! That’s amazing.“
I thought he was being sarcastic, and he was, but not for the reason I thought. While I thought my motion was dead in the water, he was a step ahead of me. He didn’t need to see my precedent.
I finish my ten-minute presentation and then it’s the opposing counsel’s turn. She starts arguing, and when she’s done, I say: “May I have one minute for rebuttal?”
The judge says, “You’re not gonna need that.”
And just like that, it clicked. He was ruling in my favor. In fact, he’d known all along my motion was solid because he’d read it. He’d denied my last two motions on discovery matters because he knew where this case was going. He knew he was going to grant summary judgment and there was no point.
He granted my motion and that was it. I won the case, no trial was necessary. It’s rare to get summary judgment in my area of practice and I was stunned. Excited, but stunned.
That was my last hearing with him before he retired. It made me rethink how I size up judges. My expectations were completely wrong and I should have given him more credit for walking into the hearing.
When I was very young, I wrecked into a parked car late at night on accident. I panicked and left the scene, driving home and parking my car in the street so as to act like someone else had hit my car. Very stupid, I know.
Anyway, the police show up the next day obviously and issue me a ticket (very nice not to haul me off to jail).
Court day shows up, I’m terrified and the poor victim whose car I hit is there. I sincerely apologise and they are impressed and nice enough not to press charges.
Anyway, I go to meet my lawyer for the first time and we walk up to the judge. He’s questioning what happened and said, “man Tribe, if you had only just left a note all of this would be completely unnecessary”. So I’m my dumb brain, panicking thinking I’m about to go to jail for hit and run, I start to say, ” but I did leave a note…”. The lawyer catches this and shoots daggers at me, and I quickly stop saying this and retract what had come out of my mouth. The judge is nice enough to pretend he didn’t hear it and I get off with some probation and community service, and of course, fix the guy’s car.
I can only imagine what was going through that lawyer’s head in the moments that were happening, he very clearly knew exactly where I was going with it and gave me a big “h*ll to the new”
This is a story that my grandpa always tells, so some of the details are fuzzy but this is the gist of it. My grandpa was a public defender, and this was a defense he used for one of his clients, who was being accused of attempting to break into a car.
How it happened: Man #1 is sitting in his house, and he looks out the window and sees Man #2 next to a car parked in the street. Man #2 is out there fiddling with the car door for like 10 minutes, and so Man #1 realizes he’s trying to break into the car and calls the cops. Man #2 runs, and eventually Man #3, my grandpa’s client, is picked up nearby because he matched the description of Man #2.
So my grandpa is meeting with his client and telling him what he’s accused of. A client asks, “Wait, what kind of car was it?” Grandpa tells him. The client says, “I can prove that it wasn’t me.” Grandpa: “How?” Client: “You said the guy was out there for 10 minutes – I can break into that car in less than 20 seconds.” Grandpa: “Prove it.”
So he finds one of whatever kind of car it was, and the client proceeds to pick the lock in 12 seconds. Grandpa gets the judge out there, and the client does it again for the judge, who makes him do it one more time and then dismisses the case.
I was just interning in court during law school but I’m a lawyer now. Fighting in a club, someone had broken someone else’s jaw and had 6 friends with him that insisted he had been identified wrongly because he never had a beard and the victim said he had a beard. They used a very specific phrasing to the tune of “my friend doesn’t have facial hair because he is a professional in the food industry and it would go against the regulations”. After three of the witnesses had repeated the same exact phrasing, the judge stopped one to ask if he knew what a couple of the terms in that line meant, and the witness couldn’t explain it.
Defense lawyer got busted for instructing the witnesses. She’d also gotten the defendant to reject a plea deal that exchanged prison time for a fine and community service.
Several years ago I was doing a civil trial (personal injury), defending a woman who (allegedly) hit a bus matron with her car.
We had offered to concede liability and just try damages (in other words, the jury wouldn’t hear the circumstances of how the injury happened, just that we agreed my client caused the injury, and they would only decide the amount of damages – we had evidence that the plaintiff was significantly exaggerating her injuries). The plaintiff’s attorney refused to agree to our concession, thinking that if the jury heard the circumstances they’d want to give even more money to punish my client.
So we went to trial on liability. The plaintiff called one witness, her client, who testified that an older woman in a green car hit her. They rested and I moved for a dismissal for failure to prove a case. There was literally no evidence connecting my client to this incident, just an older woman in a green car. The plaintiff never bothered to call my client to the stand.
The attorney told the judge that the bus driver had written down my client’s license plate and given it to the police. They never bothered trying to find the bus driver. The attorney asked if she could just put the police report in and I objected that it was hearsay.
The attorney then actually said, “please just let me put this in, I haven’t had work in a while and I got retained by a firm to try this case, I really need to win this.” Of course, I didn’t agree, and the judge dismissed the case. I felt a little bad for her but that was maybe the worse presentation of a case I ever saw.
I spoke with the jury afterwards and they all said they hated the plaintiff, didn’t believe a word she said, and likely would have found in my favor anyway.
I was interning during law school prosecuting domestic violence cases. The Deputy DA asked me to talk for the first time during a guy’s arraignment, for beating his wife. An arraignment is when the Defendant hears the charges against them and pleads guilty or not guilty basically. When the judge calls on me to speak, I got insanely nervous. And told the Defendant that his charge carried a maximum penalty of 30 YEARS when it was actually 30 DAYS.
He freaks out, and the crowd (some in the gallery were his family and friends) gasps. The judge basically stops me and says “I think you mean 30 days counselor…” After which everyone, including the defendant, laughed at me…
I worked part-time as a paralegal when I was in college. We had this massive case with a lot of people involved that had spun out into a bunch of little side cases. In one of those side cases, this guy was claiming our client had left him threatening voicemails related to the main case, and he and his wife sued for loss of consortium. Loss of consortium and I swear to you this is a real thing, basically means something happened that is stopping a married couple from having sex, and they want to sue you over it. The guy was claiming that he was so scared by these voicemails that he couldn’t sleep with his wife anymore.
Deposition time rolls around, and I’m sitting in the other room, but it’s a small office and I can hear everything. My boss starts asking the wife how we were supposed to know that it was our client’s fault they stopped having sex. Maybe she’s just not as attracted to him anymore. Maybe he’s not attracted to her. Maybe they didn’t have that much of a sex life, to begin with, etc. So this woman starts yelling “I love sex!” and banging her fists on the table. Her lawyers try to calm her down and tell her to stop talking, but she keeps on shouting “I love sex! We used to have sex 2, 3 times a day!” And to the protestation of everyone in the room, her counsel and ours, she proceeded to describe their sexual history in graphic detail, all of which was recorded in the deposition and filed with the court.
I’m not a lawyer but a court case I was involved with went this way.
My ex-MIL was a crazy b*tch. Me and my wife at the time had TO cut her off almost completely. Every time she would give in and let her mom visit, which always turned out badly.
Eventually, we got divorced and I got full custody. MIL went nuts and decided to sue me for custody. I looked over the law and for any form of visitation or custody you need to have had contact in the last 6 months and she hadn’t seen them for over a year.
So we go to court. I can’t afford a lawyer but the law was pretty clear. She goes through three lawyers, and each of them quit in turn. So she finally winds up representing herself.
During the last hearing, she was talking to the judge and said something to the effect of “I don’t want to get custody of them, I just want to be able to visit”. The judge then asked her point blank “this is a custody hearing. Are you telling me you no longer want to get custody?” She said yes and the judge dismissed the case immediately.
I’m a prosecutor now, but I used to have a private practice where I did a lot of evictions. My usual landlord clients wouldn’t even come into my office until their tenants had been behind for months, and most of the time the tenants were defiant in their non-payment, so it wasn’t difficult to not take pity on them.
Anyway, one tenant was a particularly dumb guy. He usually came to court dressed in a wife-beater and cutoff jeans. We had a trial date set and my client and I showed up. The tenant did not. At the last second before the judge entered a default, some woman comes bursting into the courtroom and yells, “Darryl’s on the phone!” The judge allows her to bring the phone up and we put the Tenant on speaker. He proceeds to ask the judge to delay the trial for one week because “My brother got his head knocked inside out and is prolly gon’ die.”
I didn’t buy it, but my client knew Darryl well enough to sense the stress and fear in his voice. I told the judge that we would allow the continuance, but only until the next available court day. The judge set it for one week out. I still didn’t believe Darryl until that night my grandfather was in an accident and we had to rush to the hospital. As we’re walking up the hallway, I see Darryl in a room with a bunch of people who are dressed like him enough to obviously be family. When we get to my grandpa’s room (he ended up being not as seriously injured as we originally feared), the first thing he says is, “You’ll never guess what happened to the guy down the hall. The nurse told me his idiot brother dropped a tractor bucket on his head and opened it like a cracked egg. He’s in a coma now.”
I relayed the news to my client and she felt sorry enough for Darryl that we signed an agreement stating that he would clear out within 15 days and we would forgive all back rent owed.
I am a lawyer. Had a female inmate claimed she was molested by one of the guards. One of her most d*mning pieces of testimony was testifying to this large vertical scar he had on his chest from a heart operation. She continued to say that she remembered this huge scar from when he molested her… The guard got on the stand, took his shirt off, and he had a tinyyyyy horizontal scar up on his shoulder. Case over. He had apparently told her one time that he had surgery, and she assumed it would’ve left his giant scar and used that to make up her story.
A taxi driver was charged with assault for pelting stones at a bus driver after a minor accident between both vehicles.
Defense lawyer: Your honor, the bus driver was injured on the right side of his neck, it is not possible for my client to cause that injury. The bus is right-hand drive and the door on the left side of the bus was open and the driver was in the driver’s seat…
State: Is counsel unaware that buses have windows?
Defense: The window was closed.
Judge: Really? How many times in this very hot and humid Indian city~ have you seen a bus drive around with windows closed unless it was raining?
Defense: I request an adjournment, your honor
I was a baby lawyer in my first year representing the 19-year-old child of some rich people in San Mateo County CA. My client had gone on a bit of a shoplifting spree and we were cleaning all her cases up with a global plea (meaning we handled them all at once).
Being new, I filled out the plea form wrong swapping the counts she was charged with for the counts she was pleading to. It’s an easy mistake to make. Every court has its own unique form and I was unfamiliar with San Mateo’s.
The judge calls my line, starts reading off the plea form, notices the mistake and then starts screaming at the top of his lungs “COUNSEL! WHAT IS THIS?! WHAT IS THIS?! IS THIS YOUR FIRST DAY ON THE JOB? THIS IS A COURT OF LAW AND WE DO NOT ACCEPT MISTAKES! FILL THIS PLEA FORM OUT CORRECTLY OR I WILL HAVE YOU TAKEN INTO CUSTODY FOR CONTEMPT!”
I did not expect a reaction like that. My client, who had clearly just taken a huge bong rip at 8 AM and who was wearing an all-pink velvet tracksuit was looking at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world.
I corrected the plea form. The judge made me wait until the very end of the calendar to take my plea. Afterwards, he called me up to the bench. In private he told me, “Sorry to ream you like that. Everyone messes the plea form up so I always pick the youngest lawyer to yell at. The older guys will grumble and complain, but if you noticed they all fixed their own forms and we didn’t have any more problems. Keeps the calendar running smoothly. Where did you go to law school?” After that, he invited me into his office for coffee and gave me some really good life/work advice. Turns out he likes talking to new lawyers.
I was in court for directions hearing. The judge was already in a bad mood and asked why we were here for such seemingly pointless litigation (without giving details, he was right.)
The barrister starts to make our case, and I am taking notes about areas we need to further explore when I hear
“EXCUSE ME, WHY WERE YOU SO RUUUUUUDE TO ME?”
The client, who had been told to NOT COME, had come to court that day and was evidently incensed by the judge questioning the merit of their case.
They berated the judge for about 3 minutes, with me and my co-counsel first stunned and then trying to shut them up, before he adjourned the hearing.
The case did not go very well, to my client’s surprise and fury. Big sigh.
I worked on a case involving defective processors. In discovery, we got emails from the defendant’s engineers that had worked on the processors. They were in an Asian country but the emails were in English because they were going to US executives. One of the more senior engineers basically laid out the exact defect we were suing over, explaining what the problem was and why it was their fault, and finishing with “this is a big problem, we ship CRAP to the customer!”
Needless to say, we hit them over the head with that in mediation, and they settled shortly after.
Probably the funniest one I ever came across happened to a colleague. We were prosecutors then. 18-year-old defendant applying for bail. He needed a residential address and got his dad to show up at court to confirm that the family home was available to him. The defence lawyer gets the old dad to confirm that son can stay at the family home. Dad says yes. My fellow prosecutor gets up and asks dad – do you really want him home? Dad goes off the deep end. ‘Jesus. The grief he’s brought me and his mother. Out all hours. Taking drugs. Hiding stolen property in the garage. All-night parties. I’m on anti-depressants and the wife’s had a nervous breakdown.’ Dad goes off on one for five solid minutes. As the defendant gets taken back to the cells, he calls out ‘Thanks, Dad. I owe you one.’
As law students, we were allowed to make court appearances under the supervision of an assistant district attorney. I was doing arraignments and my ADA said “Don’t talk to the judge unless he asks you a specific question.”
So the judge and the defense attorney were going back and forth about when the next court date would be. The judge wanted a specific date, let’s say 4/20. The defense attorney was adamant that she couldn’t do that date. In my file, I had a calendar with a big X over 4/20 saying “Do Not Schedule”. The judge and defense attorney go back and forth for several minutes, the judge wanted 4/20 and the defense attorney said no. I was keeping my mouth shut because the judge hadn’t asked me directly.
Finally, the defense attorney relents and agrees to 4/20. The judge turns to me and says “Do the People agree with 4/20?” At which point I say “Sorry your honor, but we cannot schedule for 4/20.”
The judge looked at me for a second and then just ripped into me “Mr Jones1, you just heard me and the defense go back and forth for several minutes about a date you knew the People couldn’t do? Do you like wasting the court’s time?” It went on like that for a few minutes, him just berating me in front of about 200 people in a court in Brooklyn. Finally, after me apologizing profusely and him giving me a withering glare, we moved on and went to the next case.
At the next break, the judge said “Mr Jones1, please approach the bench.” I thought I was really in for it then. I walked up beside the bench, and the judge came down to talk to me and said with a big smile “Don’t worry about it, I was just giving you a hard time. Welcome to Brooklyn Criminal Court.”
I was cross-examining a guy who was arguing the car in question was really super important to him and that he, in fact, owned it instead of his knucklehead brother who was seen dealing drugs out of it. He was waxing and waning about how he worked on it, drove it all the time, it was his baby, etc.
“So you say the car means a lot to you.”
“Yes. I love it.”
“And you drive it often? Still?”
“Absolutely.”
pregnant pause
“So where is the vehicle now?”
” . . . uh, uhm, could you ask that again?”
“Where is the vehicle right now?”
“It’s uh . . . stored. Stored somewhere.”
“Where?”
“In . . . storage.”
“Hm. You don’t know where the vehicle is right now, do you.”
He did not win the case.
One of my clients got busted cooking meth. This was a very clear-cut case, they actually caught him in the middle of a cook. No way he was getting out of this one. Even worse, he was cooking at home and the children were there. Yep, the DA loaded him up with felonies, there was no bail and he was being held in the county jail.
My client knew he was f*cked. He had been planning to get married a few weeks after he got busted.
My client asks me if he can get released for 24 hours so he can still get married. I tell him that I’ll ask, but that there’s no way in f*cking h*ll they’ll let him out.
First, I ask the DA if they will allow it. Nope. They laugh.
So I file a motion with the court. Now, I knew the judge was a crusty old conservative family values kind of guy. Who also has a raging erection for a drug crime. There was no law involved, but I put together an argument about the sanctity of marriage and how the state should encourage marriage at all times, and that sort of thing.
We have a hearing and I make the argument. The DA is totally opposed and calls it ridiculous.
And the judge grants it. The judge actually decided to allow my client out for 24 hours to get married. He had to surrender at the county jail at 8 AM the next day and some other conditions, but, still, he was allowed out.
Everyone is stunned. Nobody can believe it.
The day of the wedding comes, my client gets out, gets married, and then goes back to jail. Everything went exactly like how it was supposed to, which is also pretty shocking.
I was representing a podiatrist in a case involving an allegedly injured foot from surgery. The plaintiff’s podiatric surgery expert had a long report outlining various degrees between the bones of the foot that should be seen in a “healthy” foot, but that was “messed up” in the plaintiff’s foot.
The morning that he was going to be called, I was reviewing the report in a diner near the courtroom, and realized that he had based his ENTIRE report off of the foot that wasn’t operated on. (We also had surveillance of the guy walking around and doing everything in his normal life just fine)
After confirming this bombshell with my client and our expert, on cross-examination, I had their doctor walk through his entire report again, outlining every detail about every “incorrect” angle in the “injured” foot, and then said, “Doctor, I just have a couple of final questions.. first, which foot was operated on again?”
“The left foot.” He replied with a furrow on his brow.
“And doctor, which foot is it in the X-ray that you’ve based your report entirely on, and reviewed here today?”
“The left foot.” He replied, confidently.
“Are you sure about that? Why don’t you check again.”
I’ve never seen a grown man turn as pale as he did in realizing that he had written an entire report based on the wrong foot. The plaintiff’s attorney might’ve sh*t himself also. It seems like such an obvious thing, but 4 lawyers (me, the plaintiff’s counsel and two codefendant attorneys) and a number of expert doctors all missed such a small basic thing. Justice prevailed that day.
This is from a professor for a long time. ago so details may be a bit fuzzy.
He was defending a client for breaking and entering. The prosecutor was able to call a special witness (not sure if that is the correct term) whose able to refute testimony that the defense gave earlier in the trial. During recess, an old lady slipped him a note asking to be called to testify on the defense’s behalf. My professor had never seen her before or had any idea what she could claim but he gave it a shot because he had nothing to lose.
My professor asks the normal questions:
Did you witness the alleged crime?
No
Do you know the defendant?
No
Do you live in the area?
No
Etc.
He finally asks. Why did you want to be called as a witness?
She says. Well, I’m retired and my husband passed away a few years ago so I get lonely. To occupy my time I go to the courthouse an listen to cases. While I was sitting outside on the bench I heard the police officer thank the special witness for lying on the stand and protecting him.
At this point, the cop and special witness tried to escape the courtroom and were detained by the bailiff.
It was the first and only ly time he had heard of a double special witness.
The client was the father of a bunch of kids the state wanted to put in foster care based on the father’s alleged anger issues.
Asked my client “The state claims you have anger management issues, would you like to comment on that?”
His answer came quickly and was not what we had prepared. “Who the f*ck said that? I don’t have any issues. Show me who said that and I’ll kill them”.
That case did not go well for us. Oh, when the judge got angry with the client for swearing he told said judge to go F himself. All in all, not a great day.
I was an attorney for an insurance company defending a lawsuit where the plaintiffs were two girls who claimed they were irreparably harmed and their lives would never be the same because severe back injuries kept them from being active. They forgot to set their Instagram accounts to private and the accounts were full of pictures of them riding jet skis, dancing, and pictures of them at the gym. The underage drinking pictures were just icing on the cake.
My dad was fighting my stepmom for custody of their kids. Dad had learned that she was doing coke. During the deposition, dad’s lawyer asked her if she ever did cocaine. Her response was, “Only when I’ve been drinking and need to stay awake while driving home from work.”
The look on her lawyer’s face was supposedly priceless. Dad got full custody.
I represented myself as a 17-year-old kid in traffic court. Contested the ticket hoping for the cop won’t show up for the court date and they’ll throw it out” trick. Ticket was for tailgating (“following too closely”) while executing a left-hand turn at a light.
Cop showed up for the court date. Oh, sh*t. Judge called me up and the cop is on the witness stand. The cop starts giving testimony sounding super official because… he’s a cop. Times of day. Badge numbers. Road conditions. Says my speed was approximately 12 miles per hour. Point of view angles. Recollections of questions to and answers from “the driver.” Floaty-head surreal out-of-body-type-feeling ensues as nerves kick in and I have no idea what I’m doing.
Judge thanks Officer Professionalism for his testimony and asks if I have any questions for the officer. Uh. Oh sh*t, I have to talk. I ask, “How fast was the car in front of me going?” . . . he answers . . .”Approximately 15 miles per hour.”
Headrush. I’ve got this.
“Your honor, how could I ‘Follow too closely’ a car that was moving faster than I was and therefore pulling away from me?”
Judge laughed. Thanked me for taking the time to represent myself and thanked me for respecting his courtroom (I had dressed “really fancy” for a 17-year-old… I think a suit left over from my grandpa’s funeral). Judge threw out the case and dismissed us both.
Cop walks out from a side door as I walk out of the courtroom. Totally expecting him to be a d*ck. He shook my hand and thanked me for keeping him on his toes. Told me I did a good job.
I’m not an attorney, but I am a clerk at a courthouse. I was recording protection from abuse cases where both the plaintiff and the defendant were pro se. They couldn’t come to an agreement, so it went into a hearing. The woman who filed the complaint began to testify and it seemed pretty basic. She accused him of hitting her and threatening her. As she testified, the judge asked some clarifying questions since the incidents were kind of running together. She blurted out “I hit him and then he hit me” and started to say some other stuff but the judge cut her off.
“You hit him as well?”
She kind of stumbled over her words, “Yes, but he hit me and…”
The judge again cuts her off and turns to the defendant.
“Do you want to file a PFA against her? I will sign one for you if you file it and I will also sign hers as well. This is a mutual combat situation and I am either signing one for each of you to stay away from each other or none at all and dismissing this.”
From what I recall, the defendant did not want to so the plaintiff’s case was dismissed as she had also hit the defendant and admitted it on the record.
My dad is a personal attorney and used to be a judge, one time this lady was trying to defend herself in court about a DUI she received (BAC tests weren’t admissible as evidence and could be challenged then, I don’t know about now), saying she wasn’t drunk when she crashed and damaged property, she was just avoiding a deer. They showed photos of the scene and she screamed, “There it is! There’s the deer I almost hit!” She was pointing to a life-like deer statue on someone’s lawn triumphantly like she had just won her case.
They asked, “Wait, this deer? You said it was in the middle of the road. This is on someone’s lawn.”
Her: “This is the one I almost hit!”
“But it’s on someone’s lawn. You said the deer was in the middle of the road, and that’s why you swerved and crashed, to avoid it.”
“It was in the middle of the road! It ran right out in front of me!”
“This concrete deer ran out into the road in front of you?”
“YES!”
She did not win her case.
My client was riding his motorcycle on a relatively calm street when this guy exited his garage, without looking, and run over him. In the deposition, the guy brought a witness that was with him in the passenger seat. The whole time, the witness maintained that my client was driving too fast and that there was no time to brake the car. I asked him the same question a few times in different ways, making him tell the story again. In the fourth telling, he, already a bit frustrated, let it slip: “- Look, I’ve already told you. We were exiting the garage and, as soon as I lifted up from getting my cell phone on the car’s carpet-” “- Wait. So you didn’t even see the crash?” There was no coming back from that.