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April 12, 2005
Forgotten Movie Found
All hail the power of persistent Googling. I saw this movie when I was in law school, and have been trying for the last several years to remember the name. I finally found it today.
I loved this movie. Not so much for the plot, which is your basic law exam question, but for the best exposition of the differences between formalist & modern jurisprudence I've ever seen.
See, this judge murders his wife, who's dying from a painful illness and he wants to spare her any more pain. Now. He's old school, so he wants to plead guilty because, hey, he did it. But his lawyer is new school, and tries to get him to plead temporary insanity caused from intense emotional distress or some such. And the judge is all like WTF? It doesn't matter why I did it. I did it. I'm guilty. His lawyer's like no, no. It does matter because if not for that, you wouldn't have killed her.
So there's all this back & forth all during the trial over which theory of law is correct....interesting to me because that's what was the big debate in the legal community at the time. And because I'd written a couple of papers on the topic back in undergrad.
Anyway, there's a plot twist at the end (remember your first criminal law class? If you shoot someone who's jumped out of the window, did you commit murder?), and everyone lives happily ever after. Sorta.
Great movie, if you're interested in that type of thing.
Now if I can just get my hands on a copy.
Posted by Rita at April 12, 2005 01:35 PM