- [Annalise Keating] I lied.
This isn't a past case,
but one I took last week
after Gina fired her previous lawyer.
- Wait, are there law students there?
- So this one day,
I walked into his office
- Oh, no.
- when I just screamed real loud,
- Oh, no.
- 'cause Arthur was standing
there, behind the door.
- Oh my god.
You can't have law students
at a witness interview!
It breaks the attorney-client privilege.
That's just screaming malpractice!
(bright music)
Hey, Legal Eagles, D. James Stone here,
teaching you how to think like a lawyer.
Today we are covering the highly-requested
How to Get Away with Murder, episode one.
Apparently, you guys wanna get away
with a whole bunch of homicides.
Well, I'll do what I can to help.
Now, be sure to like and subscribe
to make sure you never miss
out on a future Lawyer Reacts.
And of course, be sure to comment
in the form of an objection.
If you object, I will be sure to sustain
or overrule your objection.
And of course, stick around until the end,
when I give How to Get Away with Murder
a grade for legal realism.
So, without further ado, let's dig in
to How to get Away with
Murder, episode one.
(upbeat music)
Alright, so clearly the first
day of class, law school.
Alright, so what we're seeing here
is a very large first-year
classroom in law school.
Generally, the classrooms aren't this big.
In law school, even
your first-year classes
tend to be less than 50 people,
often they're 30 people or so.
Mainly because first-year
classes are almost always
graded as an issue-spotting essay exam.
So you would rarely see a
class that was this big,
especially In a first-year class.
- I threw up four times
this morning worried
she's gonna call on me.
- Yeah, she's a ball buster, sure.
But I spent my summer interning
for Chief Justice Roberts.
- What?
- Dershowitz has the upper
hand in the academic world,
but Keating's clearly the
better defense attorney.
- Okay, so there is some truth
to the fact that in law school,
you're going to run up against
what are called gunners.
Gunners are those people that just seem
to have every answer to every question
and they're gonna raise their hand
at every single opportunity.
And they think that they have
a really impressive resume.
And you're gonna get people
that are tooting their own horn.
Now, the kind of things that
these potential students
are talking about is kind of ridiculous.
You would never, ever, ever have someone
who is just starting law school
and yet they were interning
for the Chief Justice
of the United States Supreme Court.
It's impossible, literally impossible.
And either he is a huge, huge liar,
or this show just hasn't
done its research.
Now, clerking for the Supreme Court
is something that actually happens,
but you have to graduate from law school
before you could ever do that.
You would never be able to
intern for the Supreme Court,
let alone the Chief Justice
of the Supreme Court
before you have gotten to law school,
that's totally ridiculous.
- Unlike many of my colleagues,
I will not be teaching you how
to study the law or theorize about it,
but rather how to practice
it in a courtroom.
- Okay, in general, I
kind of like that idea
about instead of focusing
on the theory of law,
focusing on the on-the-ground tactics
that you would use as an attorney.
But these students are first-year,
first-semester law students.
They don't know anything about the law.
So, generally, that's why law professors
will ease into the curriculum by talking
about the theories and
the policy arguments
that undergird our entire legal system.
You gotta give them a
little background first
before you dig in to the nuts
and bolts of actually practicing
because those are two
very different things.
- Now to our first case
study, the Aspirin Assassin.
Tell us the facts.
- Alright, this appears
to be an actual case,
that may be ongoing.
Law school does actually
use the case method.
When you're talking about
cases in law school,
what you're really talking
about are appellate opinions.
In other words, the losing
party in the court below,
the trial court, didn't
like the way that they lost
and so they appealed that
decision to the higher court
to review the aspects of
the law that were applied.
You're not talking about
re-litigating the entire case.
The facts are given to you.
When you get to an appellate
court, the evidence is set.
And really, you're just
applying the facts as given
to the law, or the theory of the law,
in the appellate court.
So it would be very weird
to start out law school
without any of the precedent whatsoever,
without really knowing what the law is
and diving into the facts of the case.
So far, right now what's
happening is very unrealistic
and it's not really doing
these students any favors.
- Day one and you're unprepared?
- No, well, um, yes,
but I didn't know there
was anything to prepare.
- I emailed the assignment to
the entire class two days ago.
- Oh, I didn't get that.
- I don't know why this is always a trope
in law school movies and TV shows.
Yes, there is substantive information
that is discussed on day one of class,
but professors know that a lot
of students aren't gonna know that
and some are gonna be unprepared.
So they will help the student out
on day one of class,
if not on further days.
- Let me help you out.
Actus reus means guilty act,
the poisoning of Mr.
Kaufman with an asprin,
whereas mens rea--
- Right.
- --means guilty mind.
- Yeah, more or less.
- So what was
Ms. Sadowski's mens rea?
- So the answer that
she's looking for here
is what is the mens rea required
to be guilty of the crime of murder?
Or I guess, attempted murder,
because the guy was resuscitated.
Well, the answer depends on
what jurisdiction you're on.
Every state has a different
mental requirement
for what will make you
guilty of a given crime.
If we're talking about
first-year law students,
we're probably talking
about the Model Penal Code,
which is adopted in many
states, but not all.
The Model Penal Code has
several mental states
that will allow you to be guilty
of the crime of murder
or attempted homicide.
One is being intentional,
another is knowing,
and a third is reckless.
And it depends on which particular
brand of homicide you're talking about.
If you're talking about
intentional or knowing conduct,
what you mean is that you either
intended the actual outcome,
in other words, the death individual.
Or, two, you acted in a way knowing that
that outcome was likely to occur.
Those are the kind of mental states
that will make you guilty,
in other words, have the
mens rea of the crime
of homicide or an attempted homicide.
So, that's what she's looking for.
- Think, Mr. Gibbons.
It's nothing more than common sense.
- [Woman] To kill.
- Will the individual that just spoke
please stand and repeat the answer?
- Yeah, but this is the first day of class
and this is the stuff that you
are supposed to be teaching them.
And by the way, this stuff almost
never comes up in actual practice
because it's all part of the theory,
the philosophical
underpinnings of criminal law.
It is not the kind of stuff that you're
gonna be dealing with
on an everyday basis.
You would never talk to the jury
about actus reus or the
mens rea of a crime.
You would give them jury instructions
that lay out in great detail
what those things mean in lay words,
not in the highfalutin
language of lawyers.
This is not talking about criminal law
from the perspective
of a practicing lawyer.
- Mr. Walsh.
- I noticed that the
verdict wasn't listed here.
So I guess my question is did she do it?
- Why don't you ask her yourself.
- This is so ridiculous.
This professor hasn't
taught them anything.
And she was going to move
on after she explained
anything about the case
except for the facts.
For any given case to have
any kind of educational value,
you need to know what the
dispositive facts are.
But you also need to know what
the outcome of that case is.
Was the person guilty of
murder or were they not?
And on top of that, where did
they get this information?
In law school, you use case books,
you don't use just random pieces of paper
that contain a story
about what this case was.
So far, this professor has
not only taught them nothing,
but really wasted their time
for 15 minutes, if not more.
- [Annalise Keating] I lied.
This isn't a past case,
but one I took last week
after Gina fired her previous lawyer.
- Wait, are there law students there?
- So this one day,
I walked into his office
- Oh, no.
- when I just screamed real loud,
- Oh, no.
'cause Arthur was standing
there, behind the door.
- Oh my god.
You can't have law students
at a witness interview!
It breaks the attorney-client privilege.
That's just screaming malpractice!
You may have heard that
attorneys and clients
have what's called the
attorney-client privilege.
Which means that what
you say to your attorney
is privileged and can't be
disclosed to another third party,
despite them wanting to
know that information.
But the way you break that privilege
is you have that conversation in a place
where you have no expectation of privacy
or there is a third part there,
which breaks the privilege.
And guess what, her entire law class
are not members of her firm
and they are not the
attorneys for this individual.
So, by having literally hundreds of people
present for when this person is talking,
that breaks the privilege
and anything that she is saying right now
can be used against her.
It's discoverable and it
may be admissible in court.
So this is malpractice to
have hundreds of people
witnessing what this
poor defendant is saying.
This is awful, this is sanctionable,
and she should be disbarred
immediately, crazy.
- Each of you have one minute
to present the best defense for this case.
See if you can beat my current plan.
- What?
- Mr. Gibbons?
- Yes?
- You'll go last, an unenviable position,
seeing that no two students
will be allowed to present the same idea.
Use the resources in this office,
Gina's discovery file, my library,
the people who know me even better
than myself, my associates--
- Okay, that's crazy for a
number of different reasons.
Number one, if you're
going to trial in two days,
then you better have your
theory of the case locked down.
And I don't know why you're
doing fact discovery,
you know, two days
before the trial goes on.
You need to have your facts in a row,
let alone your entire defense theory.
That needs to be ready to go.
Now, on top of that,
I know it sounds cute to have a bunch
of law students give their
theory of their best defense,
but again, all of that
information is discoverable.
The prosecutor can get the information
that these students have provided
because they're not bound
by attorney-client privilege
or the work product privilege.
They're not attorneys, they're
not members of the firm,
and it's (sighing).
I don't even know what to say.
This is so insane and
such malpractice that
(sighing) I need a break.
I need a break, this is crazy.
Alright, we're back.
I'm not gonna let this
stupid TV show break me,
despite the stupid legal
things that are going on.
We're gonna plow through it,
we're gonna keep going.
- Step one, discredit the witnesses.
Step two, introduce a new suspect.
That person is Mr. Kaufman's
jealous business partner, Lionel Bryant.
Step three, we bury the evidence.
- There's a very good
reason you won't find
any of the information
that she's talking about
in any first-year class
in the entire country.
It's because she's really doing
a disservice to these students.
They're not learning
anything about criminal law.
They're not learning about
what constitutes a crime,
they're not learning about
the philosophy of the
American legal system.
She's just getting into trial tactics.
Which, there's a time for that,
but its not when you're
a first-year law student.
- Why are you here?
- It can wait.
- Frank?
You didn't lock up, again.
(crickets chirping)
Speak.
- I came across this case,
Commonwealth v. Mcginnis,
which says we can move
for a faster verdict
if we think the prosecution's
evidence is insufficient.
- What you're suggesting is
called a directed verdict.
If we ask for it and get denied,
all the public will hear
is there's enough evidence to convict.
- But you discredited the
first assistant today and--
- You had an idea, I'm
telling you it's a bad one.
- Yeah, that is a bad idea.
First of all, it's silly that he learned
about a directed verdict from a case.
A directed verdict is a real thing
and it does allow you to get a case
dismissed very early on in the case.
However, that's a product of statute.
So, basically, every
jurisdiction has a statute
that says you can, at a certain time,
move for a directed verdict.
He would know that if this teacher
had taught him anything in class,
but obviously she hasn't.
But the time for a directed verdict
is at the close of the prosecution's case.
They can't just call one witness
and have a good cross-examination
of the prosecution's witness and say, oh,
well therefore, because this
witness didn't do a good job,
that we have to throw out the
prosecution's entire case.
That's really silly.
Instead, you would wait for
the prosecution to make their entire case,
call all their witnesses,
submit all their evidence.
And then you would make
a motion to the judge
and say, taking the
prosecution's case at face value,
they haven't met their burden
and established guilt
beyond a reasonable doubt.
That is a motion you could make.
But it's only after
everything has come in,
not just after one particular witness.
So, I don't why this guy thinks he's found
the secret to this case, it's a bad idea.
But it's a product of the fact
that he hasn't learned anything
from this law professor,
who's the one who's
supposed to be teaching.
It's bad.
- How'd you get this?
- It wasn't exactly legal, is the point.
- Then we just have to get creative.
Bonny?
Mr. Bryant, you and your
business partner, Mr. Kaufman,
had a meeting in his office
on the morning of the accident, correct?
- Yes, to discuss moving
Gina to accounting.
- [Annalise Keating] So
to avoid any possible
sexual-harassment lawsuit?
- That's correct.
- Will you please read this email
that you wrote to Mr. Kaufman?
- Dear Arthur--
- Okay, you can't just go up to a witness
and ask them to read an
email that they wrote.
You have to establish
the proper foundation.
And this probably isn't interesting
to anyone except fellow lawyers.
But getting documents into evidence
is probably one of the things
that takes up most of our time in trial.
And all of those are considered documents
that are usually considered hearsay.
So in order to get those
documents into evidence,
you have to, number
one, lay the foundation,
and, number two, establish
a hearsay exception,
or a reason why it's not hearsay
in order to get that into evidence
above the objection of what
the other side is going to do.
Now, the thing that we
use most of the time
is what's called the
business records exception,
which is a hearsay exception
in most jurisdictions.
And it allows you to establish
that a record kept in the
regular course of business
is verifiable enough that it
should come into evidence.
But there are a lot of different elements
that you have to establish in order
to get that information into trial.
They haven't done any of that.
So, you can't just go up,
especially, (laughing) when the email
is attained illegally.
They're gonna have some big problems
in establishing that that email
is what it purports to be and
should come into evidence.
- Your Honor, this email was
not part of the discovery file.
- Is this true?
- I thought it was.
Although, my associate is more familiar
with the paperwork on this case, Bonny?
- Oh my god.
- What?
- I found the email in
the files given to us
by our client's previous
attorney, Your Honor.
I'd just assumed it was
part of the discovery file.
- It wasn't, which means it
was obviously obtained illegally.
- Enough.
Did you write this email, Mr. Bryant?
- Yes.
- Then I have to side
with the defense here,
the email's admissible.
- Your Honor!
- I've made my decision,
Mr. Williams.
(laughing)
- Now, there's a bigger problem,
in that the state hasn't turned over
exculpatory evidence to the defense.
And under Supreme Court
precedence, under the Brady case,
that is a constitutional violation
to not give exculpatory
evidence to the defense.
The prosecution, if they
have certain evidence
that is exculpatory towards the defendant,
they have a duty to turn
that over to the defendants.
That they haven't done so
might be grounds for a mistrial
or it might be grounds for a reversal
if there was a conviction.
They may have overplayed their hand
by using this in court,
instead of using it on appeal
to overturn the conviction,
if that is where it was going to go.
- Bryant, as stated in the email,
you were angry at Mr.
Kaufman for taking part
in a sexual relationship with an employee.
- I was frustrated, yes.
- So frustrated that perhaps you swapped
his blood-pressure pill for an aspirin
in order to gain sole
ownership of the company?
- Objection!
- Withdrawn.
No further questions.
- I hate it when lawyers
on TV ask a question
and then immediately withdraw it.
What that means is that none
of that information can come in.
And you can make good points,
and you can hammer that point home,
without asking an argumentative question
that's just going to be
stricken immediately.
It would be better to get
the underlying evidence out
and have that remain as
part of the court's record
than it would be to ask a stupid question
and then have it withdrawn immediately.
I hate it when lawyers do that.
- The night before the murder
attempt, Ms. mcg bought,
what does it say on that
label, Detective Gill?
- Colorectal, it's a brand of aspirin.
(dramatic music)
- You had one job.
To let us know what
bodies we needed to bury.
Texts, calls, anything we needed
to destroy, and you didn't.
So guess what, guess what!
You go to jail, and I'm the
shoddy lawyer who put you there.
- I had a headache, it isn't--
- I mean, it is important for clients
to tell you all the bad information
so you can plan around that,
but I think the number of clients I've had
that have told me 100% of every story
is probably close to zero,
and I suspect most other
attorneys have to deal
with clients that aren't
always gonna tell them
everything about every single case,
that's just part of the nature of the job.
So her reaction, as if
she's never had a client
who didn't tell her about
a single fact before,
it's just silly.
And besides, her last attorney was fired,
so what's to say that she's not
gonna fire Viola Davis' firm from this?
I mean, you don't talk
to a client that way,
even when they've done something
that's not particularly good for them.
- Detective, in your 12 years working
for the City of Philadelphia,
have you ever known them
to alter video footage
to help the prosecution get a conviction?
- [Prosecutor] Objection!
- Digitally altering
aspirin labels, for example?
- Your honor!
- I'm simply asking Detective Lahey
about his personal experience
within his department.
- This is the last question I'll allow.
- (laughing) Look, it's very clear
whether this information
is relevant or not
or whether it is admissible or not.
For the judge to allow one
more question is ridiculous.
I would think that this
line of questioning
as to whether some unnamed police officer
has doctored evidence in a different case
is highly prejudicial
and is really minimally
relevant to this case at hand.
She can ask about the
particular tape all day long.
But for her to ask about speculation
about what may or may not
have happened in other cases
is exactly the kind of
prejudicial evidence
that shouldn't be coming in
and the judge should not
have allowed this evidence.
It's ridiculous.
- Ms. Sadowski is and
always has been innocent.
And I'm so happy the jury agreed.
- I wanna be her.
- Now is time to find out
who will be joining us in our firm.
First, the standout in the class--
- Alright.
Firms don't make hiring decisions
based on a few weeks of the
first semester of law school.
In reality, what happens is you go
through your entire first year,
you then get a summer job in-between
your 1L year and your 2L year.
Then, when you come back to your 2L year,
you will interview with a bunch of firms
to hopefully get a summer
associate job in your 2L summer.
I mean, these students
haven't had a chance to study,
let alone take a final exam.
And nobody knows whether they're capable
of being in a law firm or not.
This is totally crazy,
this is halfway through their
first semester in law school.
This si ridiculous.
Ah!
- So that detective--
- Is my boyfriend, yes.
- I don't want the job.
Not if you picked me because of that.
- That?
- You got him to lie on the stand.
- Is that why I picked you?
Because I thought I picked you
because your self-defense argument
showed you think well on your feet.
We won because I did my job.
You think carefully.
Everything after this moment
will not only determine
your career, but life.
You can spend it in a coorporte office
drafting contracts and
hitting on chubby paralegals
before finally putting a gun in your mouth
or you can join my firm
and become someone you actually like.
- Oh my god.
This law firm would not
be the only law firm
that is interested in the
students of this law school.
It's ridiculous to think
that these students
aren't gonna make anything of themselves
unless they work for the law firm
where this law professor
happens to be partner.
This is so stupid, so stupid. (sighing)
- So decide, do you want the job or not?
- No, run away!
Run away!
Alright, that was the first episode
of How to Get Away with Murder.
- [Man] All rise.
- Aw man, that was rough,
that was really rough.
I mean, between law school scenes
that were kinda like Legally
Blonde, but much, much worse
and courtroom scenes that
were like Perry Mason,
but even more unrealistic,
that was a hard one to get through,
as an actual, practicing attorney.
So all in all, I give How
to Get Away with Murder
episode one a D-plus at best.
You would've flunked
my class in law school.
So, if you enjoyed this episode.
Hopefully more than I did,
check out this playlist I put together
that includes all my prior reactions,
including to Suits and The Good Wife.
So click on this playlist
and I'll see you in court.
