Criminal law lessons from ‘My Cousin Vinny’

Fourteen years after its release, “My Cousin Vinny” retains a devoted audience in the criminal defense legal community.

This spring, two presenters at a National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers conference used clips from the movie to teach young lawyers the finer points of voir dire, cross-examination and trial strategy. Several other criminal defense lawyers told Lawyers USA they routinely cite scenes from the movie to illustrate key legal points — both with other attorneys and their clients.

Even Arthur Miller, the world famous Harvard Law School professor, advises his first-year students to check out the film.

“Most movies don’t really get into trial procedure, but ‘My Cousin Vinny’ does,” Miller said. “Movies are great because they dramatize and bring a reality — even when fictional or funny — to law in action in a way that the classroom does not. Even a sensationalized scene like the Cruise-Nicholson confrontation in ‘A Few Good Men,’ tells the student that courtroom drama plays out in real life, although admittedly rarely in the stark form that Hollywood offers.”

Miller lists “My Cousin Vinny” among a handful of “great law movies” including “Twelve Angry Men,” “Anatomy of a Murder” and “Judgment at Nuremberg.”

But among trial lawyers — especially those who specialize in criminal defense — “My Cousin Vinny” is the one movie they never tire of watching.

Directed by Jonathan Lynn, the courtroom comedy stars Joe Pesci as Vincent Gambino — a New York attorney who took six tries to pass the bar exam and who has never tried a case. Vinny is summoned to rural Alabama to defend his cousin and a college friend who have been mistakenly identified as the culprits in the murder of a convenience store clerk.

Although Vinny and his brassy fiancee, Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei), initially repel the judge (Fred Gwynne) with their flashy attire and thick New York accents, they eventually decimate the prosecutor’s case and win over the jury.

Cited by Court TV as the best trial movie of all time, “My Cousin Vinny” is actually an insightful look at courtroom procedure and trial strategy.

Witness preparation

During his presentation on cross-examination at an NACDL seminar in Philadelphia this spring, Anthony Natale of the federal defender’s office in Miami showed several clips from the movie, including Vinny’s pre-trial research and witness interviews.

“The reason I like using it is he’s interviewing people,” Natale said. “It’s not like he’s shooting from the hip.”

Before the trial, Vinny interviews key witnesses in person and tries to envision how each one saw the crime.

Natale also showed Gambini’s cross-examination of several eyewitnesses: one who saw the crime through his grime-covered window; a combative witness whose time estimates are skewered by Gambini’s research on cooking grits; and an elderly woman whose eyes “have gotten more and more out of whack.”

The scenes, Natale said, “really do illustrate how you can create that dissonance between the jury and the eyewitness.”

An evidence primer

Charlie Daniels — an Albuquerque, N.M., attorney who has been practicing and teaching criminal defense for 37 years — has used “My Cousin Vinny” as a teaching tool for his class in Evidence-Trial Practice at the University of New Mexico School of Law.

“Besides being a well-written, well-acted and laugh-out-loud funny movie, this trial movie is one of the best in providing realistic lessons and good and bad trial techniques,” he said. “[It provides] vivid examples of important points that [students] need to learn.”

Like Natale, Daniels uses clips from the movie to emphasize the importance of cross-examination and thorough investigation and preparation.

Other trial tips Daniels extracts from the movie include:

— The importance of never going fishing at trial by asking questions on cross when you don’t know what the answer will be.

“Look at the pathetic co-counsel’s smugly wading into areas that kept giving the adverse witnesses more opportunities to sink his client, at Vinny’s early floundering on cross, and at the prosecutor’s uninformed attempts to cross Vinny’s girlfriend on her qualifications as an automotive expert,” Daniels said.

— Proper and improper techniques in presenting and challenging expert testimony, including both expert qualifications and dealing with the opinion itself.

“The climactic part of the movie comes with the destruction of the supposed ‘smoking gun’ expert testimony of the FBI tire expert by Vinny’s better-informed girlfriend,” Daniels noted.

Other tips that Daniels uses the movie to illustrate include:

How to dress and not dress for trial. Vinny appears at the arraignment in a leather jacket and without a tie, and is jailed for contempt of court for behaving disrespectfully and failing to enter a plea for his client. When the trial opens, Vinny shows up in an outlandish, vintage Southern suit because his suit fell in the mud.

How not to conduct voir dire. During Vinny’s voir dire of his fiancée as an automotive expert, the prosecutor trips himself up by asking her a trick question that ends up — much to his chagrin — proving her automotive knowledge.

How not to make an opening statement. After falling asleep during the prosecutor’s opening statement, Vinny is awakened and asked to give his opening. With no idea what the prosecutor has said, Vinny’s opening statement consists of: “Everything that guy just said is bull***t. Thank you.”

An understanding of how witnesses can experience the same event and have markedly different perceptions and recall of it. The sheriff testified that the defendants confessed to murder, but the defendants contend they confessed only to shoplifting.

The importance of civility in dealing with witnesses and others. “Contrast the different behavior of the unsuccessful Vinny at the beginning of the proceedings and the successful Vinny in the latter parts,” Daniels advised.

Practice tips

Nashville Criminal defense attorney James A.H. Bell, who lectures frequently to criminal defense organizations, uses “My Cousin Vinny” not only for anecdotal explanations or to make a point at seminars, but also in his criminal defense practice.

When a client wants to speak to police, for example, Bell advises: “A discussion with law enforcement will invariably be misconstrued, as illustrated in ‘My Cousin Vinny’ when the two defendants were interrogated by the sheriff and ‘confessed.’”

The sheriff thought the defendants confessed to the crime of murder, when, in fact, they thought they were confessing to misdemeanor shoplifting.

After being reminded what happened to the defendants in “My Cousin Vinny,” Bell added, “Needless to say, clients don’t discuss the matter with the police.”

On the legal lecture circuit, Bell said, “The entire crime, trial and drama have played a role regarding ethics, cross-examination, voir dire and investigation.”

Jury lessons

Los Angeles trial consultant Richard Gabriel called “My Cousin Vinny” one of the “funniest movies out there.” Gabriel uses the movie at seminars for both expert witnesses and attorneys. “It’s funny because it hits a nerve about different aspects of the trial that are true in such a relevant way.”

Gabriel cited a voir dire scene in which the prosecutor tells a prospective juror about the defendants’ alleged murder of the store clerk, prompting the woman to shout, “Fry ‘em.”

“It hits on the essential juror bias,” he said.

Another scene that’s a big hit with his audiences is when the smooth-looking public defender stutters through his entire opening statement, and then tells his client, “I get a little nervous.”

“It just touches a nerve in terms of attorney presentations and how they look versus how they sound,” he said.

Another scene Gabriel finds useful as a teaching tool is the one in which Vinny qualifies his girlfriend as an expert witness. An out-of-work hairdresser who has worked in her family’s garage, she dazzles the courtroom with her knowledge of auto mechanics and car makes and models. Under Vinny’s questioning, she disproves the testimony of a FBI expert and forces the case to be dismissed.

“Everybody thinks it’s the resumé and CV that really matter, when a lot of times jurors want to know what [experts] have done,” Gabriel said.

This article originally appeared in Lawyers USA, Minnesota Lawyer’s national sister publication.

A sample cross-examination from ‘My Cousin Vinny’

The following dialogue from “My Cousin Vinny” occurs during a cross-examination by Vinny. The witness maintains that he looked out the window of his house and saw Vinny’s clients fleeing the “Sack o’ Suds” — the convenience store where the crime occurred.

Vinny: Hey, Mr. Crane, what are these pictures of?

Witness: My house and stuff.

Vinny: Your house and stuff. And what is this brown stuff on the windows?

Witness: Dirt.

Vinny: Dirt? What is this rusty, dusty, dirty looking thing over your window?

Witness: It’s a screen.

Vinny: A screen? (To jury) It’s a screen. And what are these big things right in the middle of your view, from the middle of your window to the Sack O’ Suds? What do we call these big things?

Witness: Trees?

Vinny: Trees, that’s right. Don’t be afraid. Just shout ‘em right out when you know ‘em. Now, what are these thousands of little things that are on trees?

Witness: Leaves?

Vinny: And these bushy things between the trees?

Witness: Bushes?

Vinny: Bushes, right. So, Mr. Crane, you could positively identify the defendants for a moment of two seconds looking through this dirty window, this crud-covered screen, these trees with all these leaves on them, and I don’t know how many bushes.

Witness: Looks like five.

Vinny: Ah ah, don’t forget this one and this one.

Witness: Seven bushes.

Vinny: So, what do you think? Do you think it’s possible you just saw two guys in a green convertible, and not necessarily these two particular guys?

Witness: I suppose.

Vinny: I’m finished with this guy.