Issue 337
May 20, 2005

INDEX

Case comment

R. v. Gunning, Supreme Court of Canada: Judgment released on May 19, 2005:

Articles

q Trial Starts With Details of Immigrant Smuggling by Julia Preston

q Legal community abuzz over disbarment decision by Jonathan Saltzman

q Justice Under the Microscope – Editorial

q In molestation trial, former Jackson attorney Mark Geragos takes center stage by Lisa Sweetingham

R. v. Gunning, Supreme Court of Canada

The Appellant was convicted of murder following an incident where he fatally shot a person, unknown to him, who had entered his home uninvited during a party. The Appellant denied that he intended to kill the deceased, instead he claimed he was scared and took out and loaded the shotgun to intimidate the trespasser into leaving. The Appellant testified at his trial that the shotgun discharged accidentally.

The focus at the trial was whether the shooting was intentional or accidental. The trial judge instructed the jury that the offence of careless use of a firearm had been made out and he refused to instruct the jury on defence of property. Further in his charge, the trial judge purported to correct the impugned instruction on careless use of a firearm. The Appellant was convicted.

Charron J. writing for the Supreme Court of Canada held that the trial judge erred in instructing the jury that the Crown had proven the “unlawful act” necessary to prove murder or manslaughter. The Court held that it is a basic principle of law that the jury is to decide whether an offence has been proven on the facts. A trial judge may give an opinion on a question of fact but not a direction. The trial judge encroached on the exclusive domain of the jury and was not cured by his recharge on the subject. The Court held that it was incumbent on the trial judge to instruct the jury on the law in respect of the careless use of a firearm, including any defences that arose on the evidence, and to leave for the jury the application of the law to the facts.

The Supreme Court granted the appeal and ordered a new trial.

The Honourable Justice Charron stated the following, “..it is never the function of the judge in a jury trial to assess the evidence and make a determination that the Crown has proven one or more of the essential elements of the offence and to direct the jury accordingly. It does not matter how obvious the judge may believe the answer to be. Nor does it matter that the judge may be of the view that any other conclusion would be perverse. The trial judge may only give an opinion on the matter when it is warranted, but never a direction.”

In respect of the defence of property, Charron J. stated the following, “ In my view, the trial judge also erred by failing to instruct the jury on the defence of property. As noted earlier, there are four elements to the defence. There was no question that Mr. Gunning was in peaceable possession of his dwelling-house and that Mr. Charlie, at Lease adter he was told to leave, was a trespasser. The fourth element, the reasonableness of the force used, was more contentious. However, as stated in Cinous at para. 54, “[t]he question for the trial judge is whether the evidence discloses a real issue to be decided by the jury, and not how the jury should ultimately decide the issue.”

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The following article appeared in nytimes.com on May 17, 2005:

Trial Starts With Details of Immigrant Smuggling

By Julia Preston

Ever since the rusted freighter Golden Venture grounded off Queens in 1993, federal prosecutors have had their sights on the Chinatown businesswoman known as Sister Ping.

Now 56, Sister Ping had a 15-year career as a top financier and enforcer among "snakeheads," as Chinese smugglers are known, the prosecutors say. They say she channeled funds to the leader of a Chinatown gang to purchase the Golden Venture, which was loaded with smuggled immigrants when it ran aground on a beach in the Rockaways on June 6, 1993. Ten immigrants drowned as they leapt into the roaring surf trying to make it to American shores.

Yesterday, nearly 12 years later, she went on trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan on charges of kidnapping and hostage taking. But the Golden Venture, prosecutors said, was only part of her operation.

While other Chinese smugglers were bringing illegal immigrants to the United States two or three at a time, Sister Ping loaded them by the hundreds in the sweltering holds of cargo ships, turning smuggling into a multimillion-dollar enterprise, a prosecutor, David Burns, said in his opening statement. "She rose to the pinnacle of her profession," he said of Sister Ping, whose given name is Chen Chui Ping. "She was one of the most powerful and successful alien smugglers of our times."

A shipload of more than 100 Chinese immigrants that Sister Ping organized and financed in 1998 ran into stormy waters as it was unloading its human cargo off the shore of Guatemala. One motor boat carrying immigrants to shore capsized and 14 people drowned, Mr. Burns said.

Sister Ping, prosecutors said, knew that the Golden Venture would have the police out looking for her. As the ship sat listing in the waters off Queens, Mr. Burns said, citing wiretap telephone conversations, she dropped from sight in Chinatown and slipped out of the United States in early 1994.

She did not surface again until she was arrested by the authorities in Hong Kong in April 2000, carrying a false passport from Belize under the name Lily Zheng and $64,000 in American and Hong Kong currency.

Meanwhile, federal prosecutors won guilty pleas or convictions for six smugglers who claimed they knew or worked with Sister Ping. They are cooperating with the government and will testify against her, Mr. Burns said.

Sister Ping's lawyer, Lawrence Hochheiser, said in his opening statement that she was never a smuggler and only ran an underground banking house that made loans to the valiant but illegal Chinese immigrants trying to reach the United States.

Sister Ping's enterprise was a "money business," Mr. Hochheiser said, and any involvement in smuggling was incidental to her loan-making. "By all accounts it was an honest business," he added, saying that she was never accused of cheating.

Mr. Hochheiser argued that the prosecutors had made "deals with the devil," with cooperating witnesses who he said were "liars and murderers." He said that one of the government's witnesses, Ah Kai, a convicted leader of the notorious Fuk Ching gang in Chinatown, had been "the genius" who ordered the captain of Golden Venture to run aground because he could not find another way to unload the ship.

"You're going to be plenty uncomfortable when you see what these witnesses are made of," Mr. Hochheiser told the 12 jurors.

The government's first witness, Weng Hui, testified that Sister Ping started out in smuggling when she was living in a small sweet-potato farming town in Fujian

Province in southeastern China.

Sister Ping, a wily entrepreneur even at the height of China's cultural revolution, saw that the demand was huge for smuggling services to the United States, Mr. Burns said. Instead of sending immigrants one or two at a time by airplane with falsified travel documents, Sister Ping saw that more money could be made by moving large human shipments by boat, Mr. Burns said. She moved from China and set up her headquarters in a storefront at 47 East Broadway in Chinatown, the prosecutor said.

Her customers often traveled the seas for months in "dungeon-like conditions" in the holds of steamships, seared by the heat of the engines, Mr. Burns said. True to her snakehead title, she sent immigrant ships on circuitous courses from China through Thailand, and across the ocean to Guatemala, Belize and Mexico before making it to the United States.

According to the prosecutor and the seven-count indictment, the trouble began for Sister Ping in the 1990's when she had difficulty finding assistants to offload big shiploads of immigrants once they reached this hemisphere. She turned to the Fuk Ching gang to help her with the logistics, even though they had little smuggling experience. In one case, the government charges, Sister Ping paid $750,000 to gang members to bring three truckloads of immigrants from Boston to New York.

The indictment accuses Sister Ping of repeatedly refusing to release immigrants from New York warehouses, where she ordered them held until they paid her fees - as much as $40,000 for a trip to New York from China.

Dressed in a proper black pants suit, Sister Ping, her shoulder-length black hair streaked with gray, sat quietly in the courtroom, listening through headphones to a Chinese translator relaying the lawyers' opening remarks. She is also accused of money-laundering.

"She promised hope and prosperity," the prosecutor charged, "but instead offered only misery and suffering while fattening her purse."

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The following article appeared in boston.com on May 14, 2005:

Legal community abuzz over disbarment decision

Officer's task called daunting

By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff

The last time Christopher and Kerri Panos saw their good friend M. Ellen Carpenter socially was nearly two years ago, when she attended the christening of their newborn twins. Carpenter, the twins' godmother, has been consumed since then with ''the project."

Everyone knew what she meant: her long-awaited decision about what punishment, if any, to mete out against three prominent lawyers involved in the epic legal battle over the Demoulas supermarket fortune.

The case was extremely sensitive, and Carpenter's friends and colleagues said they had no idea what her recommendation would be. They finally found out Thursday, when Carpenter issued a 229-page report recommending that all three be disbarred.

Carpenter, an unpaid hearing officer for the state Board of Bar Overseers, concluded that an alleged plot by Kevin P. Curry, Gary C. Crossen, and Richard K. Donahue to try to show that Superior Court Judge Maria Lopez was biased in the case had ''brought shame and disrepute" to the legal community and warranted the harshest punishment possible. The controversial decision, which took Carpenter many nights and weekends to prepare, has made her the talk of legal circles.

Carpenter, the 50-year-old president of the Boston Bar Association, won't talk about the case. But people who know her say the decision reflects her core values, including a belief that lawyers should demonstrate both integrity and zealous advocacy when working for clients.

Renee Landers, a friend of Carpenter's and her predecessor as bar association president, said Carpenter believes ''being fair and straightforward with people is really important, even if it's difficult, even if it means you don't win."

In the decision, Carpenter skewered the lawyers for allegedly trying to wring evidence from Lopez's former law clerk through trickery, extortion, and intimidation. They left the impression, she wrote, that lawyers, ''even very prominent ones, will do almost anything to prevail if enough money is at stake and available for their use." The three compounded the misconduct, she wrote, through dishonest testimony in 25 days of hearings spread out over 18 months in 2002 and 2003.

Before the decision can take effect, it must be approved by the 12-member Board of Bar Overseers and then a single Supreme Judicial Court justice. The three lawyers plan to appeal.

Weighing the ethical conduct of a fellow lawyer is often difficult, but it can be especially challenging in the relatively small Boston bar, where hearing officers may well be familiar with the lawyers they're disciplining.

Carpenter, for example, was a colleague of Crossen's for about six months, when their tenures overlapped at the US attorney's office in the late 1980s; none of the people involved in the case asked her to recuse herself, and she told them before the hearings that the tie would have no impact.

But Carpenter's task may have been even more daunting given how much attention the Demoulas court battle had garnered and that Crossen and Donahue are well-connected lawyers fighting for their professional lives.

''I think the whole project weighed on her, because she knew that it would be subjected to a lot of scrutiny," said Landers, an associate professor at Suffolk University Law School. But she said Carpenter, a native of Bennington, Vt., ''is the kind of person who calls things as she sees them."

Ned Leibensperger, president-elect of the Boston Bar Association, said it had to have added to the pressure for Carpenter that people kept asking her when she would issue her report. ''She was very steadfast that, 'I'm going to do this job right and not be rushed,' " he said.

Carpenter, who is single and a graduate of the University of Vermont and Notre Dame Law School, spent hundreds of hours combing through transcripts and reviewing the testimony of 21 witnesses. Friends and colleagues say she even lugged boxes of documents with her to American Bar Association conferences in Salt Lake City and Atlanta.

She had to balance the task with her job as a bankruptcy lawyer at Roach & Carpenter, a small law firm that she and four other women started after they left the US attorney's office, and other responsibilities.

Donahue, Crossen, and Curry condemned her findings. Thomas Kiley, who represented Crossen, called it the work of ''a hearing officer with righteous hindsight." He said Carpenter brushed aside the fact his client felt he had to investigate evidence of Lopez's partiality.

But John Mirick, a Worcester lawyer who assigned Carpenter to serve as hearing officer on the Demoulas case when he was chairman of the Board of Bar Overseers, said he's sure she gave the three lawyers a fair shake.

''I feel very confident that Ellen gave them that."

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The following article appeared on nytimes.com on May 16, 2005:

Justice Under the Microscope

Television viewers relishing crime-show denouements based on airtight DNA evidence had best get a grip on reality: DNA is only as reliable as the humans testing it. Virginia's once highly touted crime lab has starkly demonstrated this in an error-ridden death-row case that was propped up repeatedly by botched DNA studies from the state's supposed experts.

Gov. Mark Warner has wisely ordered a review of more than 150 capital murder convictions involving DNA evidence. He acted in the face of an independent panel's finding that bad science and political intrusion underpinned the 17-year imprisonment of Earl Washington Jr., a mentally retarded man who came within days of execution for a vicious rape-murder.

After years of controversy and defensive denials by police and statehouse officials, independent DNA testing forced by outside critics from the Innocence Project not only cleared Mr. Washington, but also positively identified another suspect now in prison as the source of DNA evidence at the murder scene. As doubts and real evidence mounted, state officials reluctantly pardoned Mr. Washington in 2000, but they did so seven years later than they should have if the state lab had done a proper job with the latest technology. Even now, some officials ludicrously theorize that Mr. Washington could have killed the woman, despite the proof of someone else's DNA.

Behind a veneer of official expertise, the lab director refused an outside review, but Governor Warner ordered one. Specialists from the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors faulted the lab in a searing critique that should serve as a nationwide warning about the often shoddy and unprofessional standards that can afflict the criminal justice system via the crime labs of America.

For openers, the labs must be kept truly independent and subject to credible review by scientific peers. They should be insulated by law from the sort of political pressures found to have been exerted in the Washington case by officials intent on defending the capital punishment system as error-free. More than political careers, lives are at stake - 23 of them right now on Virginia's busy death row.

As Virginia was once hailed as a role model by other state crime labs, so its dangerous flaws must serve as a recipe for badly needed improvements. And producers of television's crime lab heroics might want to consider the tortured Earl Washington case for a plot-line leap into reality.

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The following article appeared on courttv.com on May 16, 2005:

In molestation trial, former Jackson attorney Mark Geragos takes center stage

By Lisa Sweetingham

Court TV

SANTA MARIA, Calif. - Michael Jackson had two lawyers defending him Friday - Thomas Mesereau, his current criminal defense attorney, and his former attorney Mark Geragos, who took the stand in the pop star's molestation trial in an attempt to distance Jackson from conspiracy charges.

Geragos represented Jackson during the time he is accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy and conspiring to falsely imprison the child and his family at Neverland. He was fired shortly after the singer's arrest in November 2003.

And though he was involved with some of the actions by taken Jackson's aides and alleged co-conspirators, Geragos told jurors Friday that he was never part of any conspiracy or crimes against the family.

"I was trying to prevent a crime against my client," Geragos said.

"And what crime was that?" Mesereau asked.

"I thought that [the accuser's family] was going to shake him down," Geragos said.

Prosecutors allege that Jackson and his five unindicted co-conspirators - Ronald Konitzer, Dieter Wiesner, Vinnie Amen, Marc Schaffel and Frank Tyson - held the family against their will in February and March 2003, surreptitiously taped their conversations, and secretly videotaped their every move.

But Geragos testified that he was responsible for initiating a full investigation into the accuser's family shortly after meeting them at Neverland in early February 2003.

"The things I was hearing about the [family] gave me great pause," Geragos told jurors.

"What did you hear?" Mesereau asked.

"When I was sitting up there that day, somebody told me a story that [the accuser] was told to refer to Michael as 'Daddy.' Michael was uncomfortable with that," Geragos said.

Prosecutors allege that Jackson told the accuser to call him "Daddy Michael," as was his habit with the young boys he was allegedly grooming as a means to molest them.

The defense contends that the accuser's mother told the boy to call him "Daddy" because she was trying to ingratiate her children with the superstar entertainer.

Geragos said he began with a database search on the family and was "gravely concerned" after learning that the mother had been involved in a civil lawsuit against JCPenney.

"It is not unknown to me that my client is frequently the target of litigation," Geragos said. He hired private investigator Bradley Miller to track the family's movements.

"I told Brad, 'Tell me where they are, tell me what they're doing, and tell me who they're meeting with,'" Geragos testified. He said he was concerned the family would try to sell false stories to the tabloids.

Prosecutors previously showed jurors videotapes confiscated from Miller's office. The grainy images appeared to prove that the accuser, his mother, siblings, grandparents and even the mother's boyfriend were under surveillance.

Geragos told jurors Friday that he ordered the surveillance as part of the investigation into the family, and that it was perfectly legal.

"I've done it on more than one occasion. I know most lawyers do it with frequency. I know DAs do it and law enforcement does it," he said.

During a heated cross-examination, however, Geragos admitted that it was not until mid-March - after the family had already left Neverland for good that he finally told Jackson's

business manager Konitzer that they should "cut ties" with the accuser and his family.

Calm and collected

Geragos, best known for representing convicted murderer Scott Peterson, was cool and calm on the witness stand. When asked to give a summary of his career, he opted for brevity.

"I went to college, I went to law school, I passed the bar," he deadpanned, to bemused laughter from the court.

"That was a little long-winded, wasn't it?" Mesereau returned.

Geragos said he had been retained in late January or early February of 2003, after a media firestorm erupted after journalist Martin Bashir's damaging documentary, "Living with Michael Jackson."

Initially, his focus was to defend Jackson from complaints being made to the Department of Children and Family Services about his fitness as a parent. Jackson, who has three children, was seen in the documentary dangling his infant child from a hotel balcony to impress his screaming fans below.

Geragos said that he had a series of conference calls with Jackson's aides, but that the singer was usually not on those calls. When he did speak with Jackson, it was for brief

periods.

"Ronald Konitzer was, from my perspective, the backstop - the person who was running things," Geragos said.

His testimony may have buttressed the defense's contention that Jackson was on the sidelines and unaware of the strong-arm tactics of his aides during the time the family was allegedly being held captive.

At the boiling point

Tempers heated up, however, during an intense cross-examination.

Prosecutor Ronald Zonen was told to "take it down two degrees" by Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville after a particularly heated exchange about whether or not Geragos had asked Jackson if he was "sleeping with boys."

"Are you implying it was sexual?" Geragos asked Zonen, refusing to answer "Yes" or "No" to the prosecutor's questions.

Mesereau lodged a flurry of objections when Zonen cut the witness' answers short, not allowing Geragos to elaborate on why he believed Jackson's "sleeping with children" comments on the Bashir documentary were misconstrued.

Geragos ultimately testified that Jackson told him nothing happened with the accuser, and that the fact that he innocently allowed children to sleep in his bed was nothing more than "an act of unconditional love."

Judge Melville called a "time-out" for all three attorneys, telling Zonen to "go ahead, relax a minute."

But Mesereau received the brunt of the judge's ire by day's end, over what he deemed a "misrepresentation" to the court.

At one point, Geragos was asked about when he learned the details of Jackson's 1993 multimillion dollar settlement with Jordie Chandler, a boy the singer has been accused of

molesting, although he was never charged.

Geragos explained that he couldn't answer the question, because the attorney-client waiver from Jackson, permitting him to testify, was only for a specific time period: from the date he was retained until the time he was fired. Presumably, his answer would have caused him to testify about events beyond that time period.

"Take the jury out, please," the judge told the bailiff in a stern voice, sending the jurors out so he could privately admonish the defense attorney.

"You didn't indicate there was any limitation on that waiver," Melville said to Mesereau.

The defense attorney apologized, and explained that he didn't believe any questions beyond the period of Geragos' representation of Jackson would be relevant.

However, upon the jury's return, Zonen launched into a series of questions that Geragos refused to answer, because they referred to times when he didn't represent Jackson.

Geragos will return to court on May 20, when the judge is expected to have ruled on whether or not he can be questioned about events that transpired beyond the waiver.

"I don't think it's productive to proceed this way," the judge announced before excusing the jury seven minutes early.

Jackson, 46, is charged with ten counts, including conspiring to falsely imprison the boy and his family, sexually molesting him, and giving him alcohol as a means to committing the felonious acts. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

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The following article appeared on courttv.com on May 18, 2005:

Court TV's 15 Most Memorable Movie Lawyers

By Daniel Green

Courtroom movies are one of the staples of Hollywood. Maybe it's the natural confrontation of defense versus prosecution, the high drama of a jury's verdict being read, or simply the budget savings of shooting practically the whole film in one setting. But whether they're dramas or comedies, screenwriters love to have lawyers as the stars of their scripts.

Of the thousands of fictional attorneys portrayed onscreen, we've selected 15 of the most memorable. Some of them are intelligent and dazzling, and others we wouldn't even hire to help us with a mortgage. But they all kept our attention.

1. Vincent Gambini (Joe Pesci) in "My Cousin Vinny" (1992)

Why is Gambini the most memorable lawyer? Not because he's the most experienced. In fact, the film starts just after he passes the bar (after failing it five times), and his first trial-his cousin's murder defense-starts out as one colossal blunder after another. But Vinny gains confidence as the case moves forward, charming the judge and revealing every weakness in the prosecutor's case. "It's sort of like the Harlem Globetrotters versus the Washington Generals," says Paul Bergman, a professor at the UCLA Law School and co-author of "Reel Justice: The Courtroom Goes to the Movies." Referring to the straight-man basketball team that famously lost thousands of games to its clowning opponents, Bergman says, "The prosecutor and judge are the Generals, trying to put on a real-trial against Vinny, who's the Globetrotters. Bottom line, the Globetrotters know basketball and Vinny knows how to be a lawyer. He knows cross-examination. Look at his technique when he questions the Marisa Tomei character. He asks her questions that the jury might have asked her if they'd had the chance. He uses common sense. He really tries the case effectively."

Best of all, he keeps the jury (and the audience) entertained and focused. Last year, the Seventh Circuit Bar Association voted Vinny's opening trial statement ("Uh, everything that guy just said is bullshit. Thank you.") as the best in movie lawyer history. In the end, we're inclined to agree with screenwriter David Mamet, who once said of "My Cousin Vinny," "I think that s the best movie ever made, don t you?"

2. Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) in "To Kill A Mockingbird" (1962)

"So many attorneys model themselves after him," says Philip Meyer, a professor at the Vermont Law School. "The voice, the integrity, the style. He's the archetype that many attorneys aspire to. It's who they pretend to be." The American Film Institute recently named Finch the greatest movie hero (topping Indiana Jones and James Bond). With his unflappable demeanor and a desire to protect the helpless, he is someone we all wish we could have in our lives. But upon watching "To Kill A Mockingbird" again, it seems that the honor is due more to his moral courage and his acumen as a single father than to his achievements as an effective counsel. His defense of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman, is honorable but lacks passion: Finch doesn't ask for a much-needed change of venue or make a single objection, and his cross-examinations are too graceful and understated to be successful in court. Yes, he is probably the most trustworthy attorney on this list, but what good does it do his client? The jury takes less than two hours to convict Robinson.

"Atticus Finch was a genteel Southern lawyer. It was very difficult to raise his ire to the level that's needed today," argues attorney Mike Papantonio, author of the "In Search of Atticus Finch: A Motivational Book for Lawyers." "I don't know if Atticus Finch is relevant anymore." Still, of all the lawyers Court TV interviewed for this article, Peck's portrayal was the performance most often mentioned. "I saw that film as a young kid," recalls Scott Hughes, a personal injury lawyer in Bellevue, Washington, "but it still reverberates."

"Was that why you became a lawyer?"

"No," Hughes admitted. "I became a lawyer to make money."

3. Arthur Kirkland (Al Pacino) in "And Justice For All" (1979)

The Norman Jewison film is noteworthy because it was the first movie to make the case that the American legal system was seriously flawed, filled with corrupt judges and incompetent attorneys. Kirkland is a Baltimore lawyer at the end of his rope, fed up with a court that allows innocent men to rot in jail.

Forced to defend an evil judge whom he knows committed the sexual assault he's accused of, Kirkland's grand opening statement, "You're out of order! You're out of order! The whole trial is out of order!" is probably the most provocative and famous courtroom scene in the history of cinema. "Al Pacino's character in 'And Justice for All' is my most memorable attorney," says Michael Papantino. "[His] character had the type of outrage that you need today. Corporations control America, and the only way is to fight back with reckless abandon. Al Pacino's character personifies that type of outrage Pacino's character knew fair play was fiction. He knew the deck was stacked."

Eighteen years later, Pacino portrayed a very different, much less honorable type of lawyer in "The Devil's Advocate." In that film, he played Satan, a partner in a successful New York firm.

4. Charles W. Kingsfield, Jr (John Houseman) in "The Paper Chase" (1973)

How scary is Kingsfield, a professor of contract law at Harvard? On the first day of the semester, the bow-tied lecturer so intimidates one of his students, James Hart (Timothy Bottoms), that Hart throws up the moment class ends. With stern visage and a searing voice that contains not an iota of humor, Kingsfield has become the iconic law professor. His heart is as cold as a Boston winter: When, at the end of the school year, Hart tells Kinsgsfield how much he enjoyed the class, the professor barely notices him, asking "What was your name?"

He delivers probably the most famous line ever written about law school: "You teach yourselves the law. But I train your mind. You come in here with a skull full of mush and you leave thinking like a lawyer." The story, about the challenges faced by a group of first-year law students (based on a novel by John Jay Osborn Jr.), was the basis for a terrific television series, with Houseman reprising the Kingsfield role.

5. Frank Galvin (Paul Newman) in "The Verdict" (1982)

"Oh, the best [movie lawyer] is Paul Newman in 'The Verdict," says Steven Moss, a former New York actor who is now a labor attorney with Kahn Kleinman in Cleveland. "First of all, it's a gritty and honest portrayal of a trial lawyer. It's the best performance of Paul Newman's career. I believe it's one of great performances you'll ever see in film." Newman plays Galvin, a Boston personal injury lawyer whose career is so deep in the toilet that he's reduced to handing out business cards at wakes. He drinks beer and plays pinball when he's supposed to be in court. His lone client is the family of a young woman who fell into a coma during a routine procedure at an archdiocese hospital. When Galvin refuses to accept a lucrative out-of-court settlement, the diocese's attorney, played by James Mason, use every trick they don't teach you at law school to win the case. Galvin, however, has truth on his side and ultimately prevails.

Attorney Moss has great admiration for the realistic touches in the film, which was written by David Mamet. "It takes you through the whole case, including investigations and pre-trial motions," Moss says. "The judge knew Galvin's reputation and stuck it to him because of that reputation.

Galvin knew the judge's reputation. Of course, many of the things that happened in this movie could never happen in a real case. Is it 100% realistic? No. But these are the movies. The practice of law, the real practice, is 99% paperwork. If they ever made a movie about a lawyer and it was real, it would be 1,000 hours long, boring and no one would watch."

6 and 7. Tie: Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy) and Matthew Harrison Brady (Frederic March) in "Inherit the Wind" (1960)

These two are the sweatiest movie lawyers, for sure. Trapped in a sweltering Tennessee courtroom, Drummond and Brady represent opposing sides in the battle over whether Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution should be taught in a high-school classroom. Based on the famous play (which, of course, was based on the Scopes Monkey Trial), Drummond and Brady argue about nothing less than the legitimacy of organized religion.

Even though Brady's argument -- that teaching evolution somehow reduces humans to the level of apes -- is as thin as the material in his seersucker suit, his oratory skills are persuasive. While Drummond, who makes the point that religion trumps science only if literally every word in the Bible is true, has the case that history favors, the judge and jury are against his cause, and in the end he is defeated. Take note of many roles played by actors who went on to television fame, including Harry Morgan (as the judge), Dick York, Claude Akins and Norman Fell.

8. Hans Rolfe (Maximilian Schell) in "Judgment at Nuremberg" (1961)

In this fictionalized story, set three years after the end of World War II, Rolfe defends a group of German judges accused of enforcing Hitler's corrupt laws. Based on the trial's outcome (all four of his clients are found guilty and sentenced to life in prison), it might seem that Rolfe did not offer especially effective counsel. But the German defense attorney is so smart and so persuasive that you almost wouldn't mind seeing his Nazi clients (including Burt Lancaster and Werner "Colonel Klink" Klemperer) set free. Rolfe is embarrassed by everything that National Socialism stood for, yet believes the only way to hasten Germany's redemption is to allow the Nazis to go free. Schell is brutally logical and ruthless during his cross-examinations, going from kindly to a killer whenever necessity dictates. Schell won an Oscar for the role, one of four actors who were nominated from the film.

9. Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) in "A Few Good Men" (1992)

"The most memorable [movie lawyer] was Tom Cruise," says Richard Holmes, a labor employment attorney in South Burlington, Vermont. "It was the emotion, stress and long hours he brought to the case. Eating Chinese food. The relationship he built with clients. It was a pretty well-rounded version of what it takes to try a case." Cruise starts out as the world's most cocksure, callous and useless attorney. Of course, one of the rules of Hollywood films is that lawyers who are ineffective in the beginning of the picture will turn out to be the second coming of Clarence Darrow by the end. Sure enough, 90 minutes later, Kaffee produces the direct examination of a lifetime, getting tough-as-nails Colonel Nathan Jessep (Jack Nicholson) to admit committing perjury and a host of other crimes.

After he shows the film in his class, Southwestern University School of Law professor Michael Epstein says students aren't particularly impressed by Cruise: "They bring up Nicholson; the best lines are all his. He eclipsed Cruise." Holmes believes the film's only shortfall is that "the case never should have gone to trial. [Cruise's clients] were offered a

pretty good plea bargain but rejected it. Of course, if they had accepted it, the movie would have been over in about 30 minutes."

10. Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) in "Legally Blonde" (2001)

"I once had to judge a tightey-whitey contest for Lambda Kappa Pi," Woods tells a college guidance counselor who questions her qualifications for Harvard Law School. "Trust me, I can handle anything."

When her boyfriend dumps her to attend Harvard, Woods makes up her mind to also earn a J.D. in Cambridge. Along the way, she uses her common sense and kindness to overcome a lack of sophistication and experience. She eventually uses her vast knowledge of hair care and shoes to win an acquittal for a client falsely accused of murdering her husband.

"She demystifies what it means to be a lawyer," suggests Professor Epstein. "She is a caricature of the pop-culture character of someone who wants to be a lawyer from birth. Still, she has an innate ability to be a great lawyer. She goes to law school for all the wrong reasons. She is a stereotypical valley and sorority girl. She is not well-versed in what it means to be a lawyer. But she does become a superb law student." Susan Hitzig, a Manhattan real-estate attorney, said she connected with Woods "because I was considered a dumb blonde too. She showed you can be a good lawyer and not have to change your whole life around."

11. Paul Biegler (James Stewart) in "Anatomy Of A Murder" (1959)

Hired to represent an army lieutenant (Ben Gazzara) accused of murdering the man who may have raped the soldier's wife (Lee Remick), Biegler is the classic movie small-town attorney, pitted against a slick big-city lawyer (George C. Scott) who has more resources and fancier suits. The film is a favorite of many attorneys, who find the script (based on a novel by former Michigan Supreme Court judge John D. Voelker) chock-full of accurate and colorful details. "It contains one of the great lawyer-coaching scenes," notes James Elkins, a professor at the West Virginia College of Law. "The client and attorney get together to make up the client's story. It's quite famous and it's shown in law school, in interviewing, counseling and even legal ethics courses."

Biegler parts with a prized fishing lure to worm his way into a visiting judge's heart. He isn't afraid to threaten his opponent with physical violence in open court. Biegler is a homespun, humble, aw-shucks kind of attorney. In Hollywood, of course, that means he's about five times as smart as anyone else in the courtroom.

12. Dennis Denuto (Tiriel Mora) in "The Castle" (1997)

This Australian film might be one of the funniest movies you've never heard of. Darryl Kerrigan (Michael Caton), a Pollyannaish father of four, owns a modest but tacky house right next to the Melbourne International Airport. When a government agency invokes "compulsory purchase" law (aka eminent domain), forcing him to sell the property so they can expand the airport, Kerrigan hires Denuto, who represented Kerrigan's oldest son in his criminal case. The lad received eight years in prison, which is no surprise; Denuto is "undoubtedly the single most incompetent lawyer in the history of film (but perhaps the very funniest)," writes Michael Asimow, UCLA law professor co-author of "Reel Justice." Earnest and honest, Denuto is so inept that one wonders if law schools in Australia actually exist.

Pleading Kerrigan's case, he is unable to cite any specific law, instead arguing that "the vibes" of the Australian Constitution should favor his client. He approaches the bench to ask the judge, "How am I doing?" When the answer is "not very good," he inquires, "Can you give me an angle?" Denuto is so ineffectual that he can't even clean the paper out of his office copy machine.

In most lawyer movies, such an inauspicious start would lead to several nights of intense study, which would turn him into world's greatest attorney (see "A Few Good Men"). Thankfully, Denuto never discovers such competence. Instead, his client has a chance meeting with a highly respected but retired attorney who specializes in constitutional law, and the barrister agrees to represent him. Denuto does assist the more experienced attorney before Australia's highest court, but his legal work there involves learning Roman numerals and fetching water.

In the end, Kerrigan wins his case. The trial garners national publicity and Denuto continues to be a mediocre lawyer, albeit a rich one. A sign outside his office reads, "As Seen on TV."

13. Amanda Bonner (Katharine Hepburn) in "Adam's Rib" (1949)

Hollywood is rarely kind to its female attorneys. Most are either incompetent (Demi Moore in "A Few Good Men") or have sex with their client (Glenn Close in "Jagged Edge"). Amanda Bonner, though, is smart, tough and successful. As a defense attorney representing a scorned wife accused of trying to kill her husband and his mistress, Hepburn battles in court against her husband Adam (Spencer Tracy), a New York assistant district attorney prosecuting the case. Sure, she weeps during a fight with Adam,

but considering that it was released at a time when there were few female attorneys, Bonner was certainly a nice role model for young women interested in becoming lawyers, especially because she emerges from the case triumphant.

14. Fletcher Reede (Jim Carrey) in "Liar Liar" (1997)

Jan Schlichtmann, the plaintiff's attorney portrayed by John Travolta in "A Civil Action," gives high marks to this film, in which Carrey plays a lawyer who, due to his young son's magical wish, is unable to tell a lie for 24 hours. "When Carrey beats himself up in the men's room to get a [continuance], oh, I loved that," Schlichtmann says. In the midst of a

divorce trial, his case quickly slips away, because everything Reede says is the absolute truth. One brilliant moment occurs after opposing counsel brings forth a damaging piece of evidence.

"Your honor, I object!" Reede shouts out.

"And why is that, Mr. Reede?" the judge asks.

Forced to lie, Reed must admit, "Because it's devastating to my case!"

"Overruled," the judge responds.

"Good call," Reede says.

Schlichtmann, by the way, is no great fan of the way Travolta portrayed him in "A Civil Action." "One scene I bristled about - I was literally nauseated - was where there was a car accident and John Travolta is handing out business cards to the man who's bleeding, mouthing the words, 'Call me.' That's just revolting. Nothing like that ever happened. I discussed it with the director and producer. They said, 'blah, blah.' It was their $70 million movie."

15. George Simon (John Barrymore ) in "Counsellor at Law" (1933)

Simon is no goody-two-shoes. A successful Jewish New York attorney who's had to fight for everything he earned, Simon engages in a variety of unethical activities, including overcharging rich clients and helping poor ones to concoct false alibis. When the state bar, perhaps driven by anti-Semitism, investigates him for an ethical violation that he privately acknowledges committing, Simon fights back with even more unscrupulous activity: He assigns his private investigator to dig up dirt on a rival committee member. It's very enjoyable to watch a less-than-moral attorney still portrayed as a hero, and Barrymore is fun to watch, even if he's quite a ham who overacts in every scene.

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