Lawyers Share The Most Memorable Moments In Court They Remember

Person I was representing was on trial for Assault in the Third Degree and DUI. In my state, A3 means you've assaulted an aid worker or police officer and is a felony. The allegations are that he was very verbally offensive to the officers and, at one point, kicked one in the face. We're sitting at the defendant's table and the officer is testifying about the statements my guy made to him, including some pretty horrific name calling. Out of nowhere, my client screams "You're a f****** liar! [darn] you, you son of a b****!!!" We lost that trial. Another time, the judge asked a client whether anyone had coerced him into pleading guilty, and he said "Yeah, my attorney." I about s*** my pants, but he laughed and said, "I'm joking. No."

A lawyer I used to know was in court on a work injury case. The judge asked his client "Just what is the nature of your injury?". His client replied "I can't raise my arm this high any more", while she raised her arm up to show just how high she couldn't raise it.

Opposing counsel was a nightmare. Everything late, his work was extremely subpar, and so forth. Accused me of lying multiple times when he had dropped the ball. During another hearing in which he did another dumb move, judge says “I’m glad you are the last case on the call, and all of the other attorneys have left the room, so they aren’t here to hear me say that you are a terrible attorney.”

Mine actually happened while I was sitting in the jury pool during vior dire. The case was a double homicide, and the jury pool filled the entire courtroom. If you're not familiar with vior dire it is when the lawyers ask the potential jurors questions to determine who they want to sit on the jury and who they want to exclude. It is a long and boring process for almost everyone involved, but 9/10 it's the most important stage in a case. So the lawyers are asking us questions and if that question applied to you, you raised your hand and they handed you a microphone to answer the question. The question asked was "Do you or anyone you know have prior knowledge of this case?" So this older gentleman raised his hand, is handed the mic, and proceeds to say "Yeah I work at the police station as a janitor, and I heard two detectives talking about him points to defendant and they were saying he was about as guilty as sin." We all kind of stared open-mouthed at this guy, and I started chuckling because I couldn't believe what I was seeing!! Naturally, the defense attorney asked to approach the bench followed quickly the by the state prosecutor. After some quick and energetic whispering, the judge addressed the man. "Do you realize what you just did. You potentially tainted this entire jury pool. I will be calling your boss and you will be hearing about this. You can count on that. You are dismissed sir, but this isn't over." The man was escorted out and then the judge addressed the remaining jury pool which was still in a mostly packed room. "Now I want you all to disregard what that man just said. I'm sure if any of you were ever accused of a offense like this you would want a fair trial, and not be condemned based on the words of one old man." I have been in court many times since, but never have I seen that level of downright jaw-dropping absurdity again.

I was prosecuting a contempt action in family court (something that basically never works) and everyone in the room could tell I was winning. The other side was unprepared (out of arrogance) and I was basically ripping this guy to shreds on cross examination (which his lawyer didn't even think would happen, because he expected the case to be dismissed.) At the end of the trial, the judge ruled for me and stated that she found the defendant's testimony to be untrustworthy. I was shocked at winning a contempt trial to begin with, but then this exchange happened: Defendent's attorney: "Your honor, now that you have found my client's testimony to be untrustworthy, I am requesting a continuance in order to prepare further witnesses." (This concept is shocking in an of itself, because to even think you can bring more witnesses after you rest your case is laughable) Judge: "You had your shot and you missed, counsel." Defendant's attorney: "Your honor, there was no way I could have anticipated that you'd find my client's testimony untrustworthy and as such, I didn't have the opportunity to prepare other witnesses in support of his position". Judge: "That may be an argument for your carrier, counsel, but it holds no water with me. See you this afternoon for sentencing." For those who didn't pick up on it, the judge basically told the lawyer ON THE RECORD IN FRONT OF HIS CLIENT that she expects him to get sued for malpractice because he f**ked up so royally. That s**t was mindblowning on multiple levels.

Not exactly in court. But I was defending a juvenile robbery case, where there was very little evidence. There was supposed to be two guys, but they only picked up this one kid, he had no stolen property on him, he was picked up like outside his own house, wearing different clothes than the victim had initially said. This kid was on the honor roll at school, his family seemed kind and were involved, he wrote poetry and played instruments. I actually believed it was a legit mistaken identity case. I went to meet with one of the kid's mentors for a character reference.... and he exactly matched the description of the other robber.

I'm not a lawyer but a court case I was involved with went this way. My ex-MIL was a crazy b****. Me and my wife at the time had cut her off almost completely. Every one in a whole 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, 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 was the defendant, representing a nonprofit that I volunteered for. The plaintiff was a 60 something Grandma who was looking for a retirement settlement after falling out of her jacked up pick up truck in our parking lot. The premise of her case was that our parking lot was in bad shape (it was) and that she fell into a pothole and broke her leg, which resulted in her having to take Coumadin and diminished her enjoyment of salads at the Friday night fish fry (no, really). It was going along fine, until my lawyer put up a photo of the pothole, taken the day of the incident, filled to the brim with water, after a recent rain. He asked the lady if she had gotten her foot wet, to which she replied that she couldn’t recall. He talked a little more about how perhaps if her foot wasn’t wet, it might have been because she fell out of the truck and didn’t really fall into the pothole. He asked again if her foot was wet, and she affirmed that yes, her foot was wet. The “oh s**t” moment came when he went back to his desk, flipped through her deposition and read the part where she was extremely adamant that her foot wasn’t wet. Then he did some fancy legal stuff, the case was thrown out and I went back to work.

Never ask a question to which you don’t know the answer. Prosecutor suggested to me client that the canned goods he had burgled were to be used to trade for drugs. Me thinking the idea ludicrous asked my client whether he has ever traded food for drugs. To which he replied that he once exchanged a frozen chicken for heroin. Needless to say, I didn’t win that one.

During jury selection. “I can’t be a juror due to the fact I’m kinda racist.”

I was interning for a judge, we were in the middle of voir dire, for what was frankly not that exciting of a case--half day trial expected, not salacious details or harshness or anything. 75 potential jurors in the room, and when my judge didn't let a guy out of jury duty "because he'd have to pick up his kids" that guy proceeded to say in front of everyone that if he was made to show up next week he'd make it the shortest trial ever and find him guilty right out of the gate. My judge was an incredibly even-keel guy. Nothing shook him or got a rise out of him, and he was an expert at figuring out what he wanted to say in the most neutral fashion possible before he said it (conversations with him took forever because there was a pause before every sentence). But then. BUT THEN. This guy [sickens] an entire jury pool of 75 people. We had to individually question each person to see if that little outburst was going to affect their impartiality, etc. 75 in camera interviews later, judge pulls the guy back in in front of everybody and begins to SCREAM at him about disrespecting him, the courts, and every other juror's time. Me, the attorneys, and the court reporter go white faced because we didn't know this was coming. The guy didn't have to sit for jury duty, but I still don't know if he got to pick his kids up, since he spent a couple days in jail for contempt.

When I was in college, I was a bailiff. Guy is on trial for [end]. First witness testified that she saw the defendant shoot the [target]. Second witness states the same. Police officer testimony is that he arrived at the scene and defendant was there holding the [piece]. Medical examiner testimony is that the first bullet hit the [target] in the arm, the second bullet hit the [target] in the torso and the third bullet hit the [target] in the heart which was the fatal [blow]. Defendant yells out " see that proves that I didn't [slay] him, I only [hit] the mother f**ker twice."

Was in court for a directions hearing. The judge was already in a bad mood and asked why we were here for such a 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 cocounsel 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 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, 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...

Represented a woman charged with multiple very serious felonies. She insisted that in the months before the offense, she’d been seriously dating one of the detectives who ultimately wound up investigating and testifying in her case. For a variety of reasons, I trusted this client and believed her, even though the detective never disclosed the relationship in his report. So, during his testimony, I ask “Detective Smith, you had a romantic relationship with Ms. Defendant, correct?” He goes “What? No!” and is visibly offended. The judge Iooks at me like I’ve lost my mind, the commonwealth attorney audibly says “what?”, I’m f******* out because a large part of my cross and argument was focused on the bias formed by the prior relationship, and now I’ve got nothing and I’ve lost all credibility. I try again, “Detective Smith, have you had a sexual relationship with Ms. Defendant?”. As the Commonwealth rises to object and the Judge starts to scold me, the detective goes “Oh, yea. We’ve had [relations], it just wasn’t very...romantic.” Edit/Update: State is Virginia. The jury acquitted my client of the relatively minor charge that the detective in my story was involved with, but convicted of the other, much more serious charges that detective had nothing to do with. There was a confession and video on the serious charges, so it was kind of a no-brainer. Sorry I'm being kind of intentionally vague, there are no confidentiality concerns (since this all happened in open court), but its distasteful to give out too much information about a client. The detective was not "disqualified", his testimony was not thrown out. Impeachment, no matter how good, doesn't result in you getting to throw out a witness's testimony entirely. By the way, it wasn't really the [relations] that was the issue, it was that he didn't disclose it to anyone and his repeated insistence under questioning that he didn't disclose it because it was irrelevant. Like Watergate, its not the [incident], its the coverup that gets you. But I don't get to demand the judge throw out the testimony or that charge just because the cop failed to disclose a prior relationship with the defendant. I just get to point it out, argue it in closing, and then hope the jury also sees the relevance.