The Trouble With Lawyers
This film reminds me why I avoid breaking laws. The criminal justice system in America is profoundly broken along with a collective moral compass.Attorney Rudolph lost the initial trail and subsequent appeals because he failed to nail-down obvious issues like the blatant homophobia of the jury which should have been address in voir dire (jury selection) and the incompetence of the Deaver testimony. He could have and should have used his own expert (Dr. Lee) and looked into Deaver's lies about experience, etc., like he did in the request for a new trial.
His pretrial discussions touched on arguments he failed to take to completion e.g., addressing the amount of blood with medical testimony on how very much scalp lacs bleed. His reconstruction of what likely happened with this intoxicated slip and fall was half-hearted and incomplete. He mentioned making an animation of what could have happened, yet one didn't show up until after losing. He failed to make much distinction between the German stairway accident with it's brain aneurism and Kathleen's impaired state . He could have introduced the number of stairwell injuries/deaths annually to explain how very often they occur, mitigating what appeared "too coincidental."
He characterized the Peterson marriage as idyllic without addressing the bisexuality-He glossed over the infidelities without explaining the concept of a poly-amorous relationship. He was out of his depth with the sexuality aspects and didn't bother to educate himself or the jury. The female prosecutor was extremely homophobic and didn't try to conceal it. Many on the jury and the judge as well. Rudolph and his team ignored it.
The defense needed many moving parts which Rudolph neglected to install. Then, he was shocked by the failure of his defense machine. Ultimately, he deflected responsibility for his failures with his incredulity at the guilty result and he took ten-plus years correct them.
score 7/10
itgirlx 13 June 2018
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4201280/15057
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