Doctor, did you have occasion to examine Mr. Hicks
on September , ?
Yes, I did.
Would you tell us what that examination revealed?
Mr. Hicks was suffering from multiple contusions
about the head and the face.
Both his neck and his right arm
-were strained.
-What about the blood pressure?
-JUDGE: Mr. Hicks.
-Come on.
ATTORNEY: Did you observe anything else, Doctor?
His blood pressure was somewhat elevated.
And to what did Mr. Hicks attribute his injuries?
He said that he was beaten up by Val Beaudine.
-Did he tell you how this att*ck occurred?
-He said that Mr. Beaudine
charged into the stands and att*cked him.
What if any were the short
-term consequences
of Mr. Hicks' injuries?
Stiffness, soreness.
I believe that he was out of work for a week.
-How 'bout two weeks?
-Mr. Hicks!
What, if any, were the likely long
-term consequences
of Mr. Hicks' injuries?
Some residual soreness is possible
-
-
sleeplessness, nervousness,
a loss of attention.
Any and all of these things are possible long
-term effects.
Thank you. I have nothing further.
Nothing further? Come on!
The guy's hitting us for $,,
-and you got nothing further?
-JUDGE: MR. Hicks.
Mr. Hicks! Sit down!
You're taking money under false pretenses, that's called stealing!
Mr. Hamman, would you kindly advise your client
as to the manner in which he is to conduct himself?
Hang on, Your Honor. I'm not gonna take lessons in etiquette
from some guy who's selling me down the river.
Think I'm selling you down the river, Ed?
Yes, I think you're selling me down the river.
I think you're more interested in cozying up
to a big, famous baseball star
than you are with providing me with adequate representation!
Your Honor, at this time I would as to be relieved as Mr. Hicks' counsel.
Whoa. Your Honor, we have been through delay after delay after delay.
-That's not my intention.
-It may not be, but that is the effect.
Your Honor, we are now into the baseball season.
My client's practice has been disrupted
and his performance on the field is being affected.
Mr. Hicks his been through four different attorneys.
Each time he gets a new one, he buys himself another delay.
Mr. Rollins is absolutely right.
Mr. Hamman, I'm not going to allow you to withdraw.
Your Honor, I cannot effectively represent this man.
Hey, Judge? How 'bout if I represent myself?
Mr. Hicks, do you have legal background of any kind?
-No, I do not.
-And you feel competent
-to represent yourself?
-I'm at least as competent as this idiot.
All right, Mr. Hicks, we'll adjourn for now
in order to give you an opportunity to prepare.
Thank you, Your Honor.
We'll resume Wednesday morning at a.m.,
And, please, be prepared to proceed.
HICKS: Don't worry, Judge, I'll be ready.
Hey, Mr. Rollins,
now we got us a game.
[laughing] Yeah.
♪♪♪♪ [theme]
♪♪♪♪
-Hi.
-Hi, Gwen.
How's everything going with the bar exam, Gwen?
Oh, it's okay. I'm taking this review course
with this guy Tony Henderson.
I go to class every day, and I study every night.
-I can attest to that.
-Are you taking enough time off from work?
Uh, yeah, I am.
Plus, as the test gets closer, I'll be cutting back more.
Plus, most of the time that I'm here, all I'm doing is studying.
-Good.
-Don't be shy about asking for help.
-Thanks.
-Shall we?
LELAND: By all means.
-Hicks v. Beaudine.
-JONATHAN: That's me.
We are representing Val Beaudine.
-The ballplayer?
-The ballplayer.
A guy named Hicks had been heckling him for an entire season.
Um, Beaudine went into the stands and committed battery upon his person.
The team offered Hicks $, to settle.
Hicks refused. He wanted his day in court.
He hired and fired five different lawyers,
and now he's representing himself.
-Temporary insanity.
-No.
-Self
-defense.
-No, all he did was yell.
Plead provocation and try to mitigate the damages.
-That's what I'm doing.
-And make sure we get some tickets.
[chuckles] Done.
Salter v. Sunny Hills School.
That's mine. We represent Ben Salter.
He's a second
-grade teacher who was accused of sexually molesting a student.
A male second
-grade teacher? What kind of guy teaches second grade?
We're not representing child molesters, are we, Ann?
I said he was accused, Douglas. The charges were dropped.
-What's he suing for?
-The school asked that he take something called
a penile plethysmograph before they reinstate him.
-I don't like the sound of that.
-What is it?
It's a machine that attaches a wire to the male organ
and measures sexual arousal.
-[scattered moans]
-Sounds likeA Clockwork Orange.
-He refused to do it.
-You're convinced
there was no basis for the accusation?
-The charges were dropped.
-Yeah, yeah, I understand,
but that doesn't necessarily mean he didn't do it.
In this country it does.
They attach a wire?
I keep telling myself, "Gwen,
"there are over , lawyers in the state of California.
"Most of those people pass the bar without having a nervous breakdown.
-You can too."
-You're gonna do great.
I don't know how I'm gonna do.
-Oh, you got work to do.
-A little, yeah.
-Okay.
-You're gonna pass the test, Gwen.
You've been pretty distant lately, you know that?
-It's nothing.
-It's not nothing, Daniel.
It's something. Tell me what it is.
I'm worried about my kid.
I'm worried that she needs more of a home life with me than she's getting.
And I'm worried that she needs
more of a constant female influence.
And I don't fit that description.
I'm not sure you want to fit that description.
-I can't discuss this right now. I've gotta study.
-Okay.
I'll talk to you later.
[door slams]
What are the exceptions?
Unavailability of the declarant,
previous testimony,
statement against interest,
dying declarations, pedigree.
All right, we'll go into the specifics of each tomorrow.
Right now, I wanna say something to you about this whole process.
Put down your pens.
I'm seeing the look of panic on a number of faces.
Panic isn't helpful. Put down your pens.
There's a tremendous amount of information
you're gonna have to integrate between now and the day of the bar exam.
You need to be organized, you need to be disciplined,
you need to work your tail off.
But at the end of the day,
you need to forget about it.
-[crowd chuckles]
-WOMAN: What?
Hey! You! Stop writing. Just listen.
There are gonna be questions on this test you will get wrong.
It makes absolutely no difference
if you pass by one point or by points,
so long as you pass.
Panic will not make you pass.
Panic will make you fail.
Don't panic.
Eat well.
-Have great sex.
-[laughter]
Get a good night's sleep. I'll see you tomorrow night.
[applause]
Hey, Joel. Do you understand the parole evidence rule?
All prior or contemporaneous negotiations
are subsumed into the written agreement,
assuming there is one.
-You wanna get a beer?
-Get a beer? Don't you have to study?
I studied enough for one day.
Why is it I can never feel that way?
All you have to do is understand what they're looking for
and give it to 'em.
It's a test. It's no big deal.
♪♪
I taught second grade at Sunny Hills School for six years.
ANNE: What reason was given for your dismissal?
I refused to take a penile plethysmograph test.
What is a penile plethysmograph test.
They attach a metal ring to your penis
and measure your response to pictures of naked children.
ANNE: Why were you asked to take such a test?
I'd been accused of molesting an eight
-year
-old boy.
-Did you?
-No.
How did you first learn that this accusation had been made?
Six police officers came to the school,
and in front of students and faculty,
I was placed under arrest.
Were you convicted of the crime of child molestation?
No, I was never tried for the crime of child molestation.
The charges were dropped for lack of evidence.
What position did the administration at Sunny Hills School take
regarding your employment there?
Well, they said they were happy and relieved
and anxious to have me back there teaching again.
They said they knew right along that I was innocent,
but unfortunately there were some lingering doubts among some of the parents,
and they asked me if I would help put those doubts to rest.
How did they suggest you do that?
First, they asked me to take a lie detector test.
-Did you agree to do so?
-Yes, I did.
-What was the result?
-I passed.
What, if anything, did they ask you to do next?
They asked me to be interviewed by a psychiatrist.
Did you agree to do that?
Yes, I was interviewed on five separate occasions,
and to the best of my knowledge, I was pronounced normal.
Did that suffice for the administration of Sunny Hills School?
No. They then asked that I...
take a penile plethysmograph test,
and when I refused, I was dismissed.
Why did you refuse?
Because enough is enough.
At some point, I had to reclaim a little bit of dignity.
That's what I did, and that's what I was fired for.
Thank you. I have nothing further.
Do you have children of your own, Mr. Salter?
-No, I do not.
-Well, if you did,
how would you feel about them being placed in the care of a pedophile?
I am not a pedophile.
No, no. No, I'm not saying that you are.
I'm asking you how would you feel about your own child,
assuming that you had one, being taken care of by a pedophile?
I would not allow my child to be taken care of by a pedophile.
Well, then, my question to you, sir, is simply this:
Shouldn't a school do everything it can
to stop that from happening?
-Not this.
-Why not this?
Because I'm not a laboratory rat, that's why not. I'm a human being.
You are a human being that was accused of being a pedophile.
-Those charges were dropped.
-That's right, they were dropped.
-But they were never disproved, they were dropped.
-Objection!
-Sustained. I thought charges had to be proved, not disproved.
I'm curious about something.
You agreed to a lie detector test.
You agreed to a psychological profile.
Why did you not agree to the plethysmograph test?
Because I wouldn't strip naked
and have wires attached to my genitals.
Because I felt that it was my right
as a citizen of this country not to be forced to do that.
It wouldn't be because you were afraid of what might happen, would it?
-No.
-It wouldn't be because you were afraid
that when photographs of naked young boys
were put in front of you,
that your genitals would betray you?
Objection! He's already answered the question!
Wouldn't it be that the penis doesn't lie?
-ANNE: Your Honor!
-JUDGE: Mr. Colquit, you will
stop badgering this witness.
Sir, I have never molested a child in my life.
I have never wanted to molest a child.
Now, unless and until somebody proves that I'm lying,
I don't want to take any more tests.
I want my job back, I want my name back,
and I want to be left alone.
Question: "Where were you on the afternoon
of September , ?"
Answer: I was in the ballpark siting in my seat.
[crowd chuckles]
Question: "What were you doing there?"
Answer: I was watching a ballgame.
Mr. Hicks, it's really not necessary to keep saying question and answer.
Whatever you want, Judge.
"What was Mr. Beaudine doing out there?"
He was playing left field.
-[chuckling]
-"Did you say anything to him?"
Oh, yes, I did. What did I say?
I said a lot of things.
I commented on his fielding, such as it is.
He'd throw rainbows. He never figured it out.
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
I commented on his propensity to swing at bad pitches,
to strike out in clutch situations.
-Objection. Your Honor
-
-
-Sit down!
Mr. Hicks, I'll run the courtroom if you don't mind.
And the objection is sustained.
Mr. Beaudine's performance isn't relevant to these proceedings.
[scoffs]
Ah. "Did you use profanity?"
No, I did not.
I make it a point not to.
What did Val Beaudine do upon hearing my remarks, Mr. Hicks?
Around the fifth inning, he comes charging up into the stands and assaults me.
Did I fight back? No, I did not.
"Why did you not fight back, Mr. Hicks?"
I was overmatched in size and strength.
"What injuries did you sustain?"
Both eyes swollen shut, a head that looked like a pumpkin.
At night, I'm a shoe salesman, I deal with the public.
I was unable to work for some two weeks.
And I was also left a little frightened, shaken up,
given the fact that my
-year
-old son had just returned from buying a hot dog.
It's hard to see his father beaten up.
I felt deeply humiliated.
Well, I have no further questions.
How many games had you attended in the season
by September , Mr. Hicks?
Every time there's a home game, I was there.
Isn't it a fact, sir,
that at each and every one of those games
you made continuous denigrating remarks to Mr. Beaudine?
Hey, I got something on my mind, I say it.
You're allowed to say it in the U.S. of A.
You made remarks about his fielding,
You made remarks about his hitting.
I'm a student of the game.
My observations happen to have some merit.
But your observations weren't limited to the game,
-were they?
-In what way weren't they?
Did you make remarks about the failure of a restaurant
that Mr. Beaudine had invested in?
HICKS: It was in all the papers.
It's not like I'm giving away any state secrets.
You also saw fit to harangue Mr. Beaudine
about a paternity suit he was involved in, didn't you?
That paternity suit took points off his batting average.
You were somewhat fixated by Val Beaudine,
-weren't you, Mr. Hicks?
-I was paying attention.
Isn't what you did a little more than that, sir?
Isn't what you did to have kept up a non
-stop barrage
of verbal abuse, taunting, and baiting this man
until on September ,
you finally provoked him into making a response?
He's wasting his God
-given talent!
That's a sin by me!
Look, I followed this guy's career going back
to the day they brought him up from the minors.
I tell the whole world this guy's it!
This guy! He's the difference between having and hoping.
I stood by him because I saw something in him.
Look, my kid liked him. I liked him.
We picked him as our guy!
And when he didn't live up to that, you let him know!
This lucky bastard makes more money playing nine innings of baseball
than I do selling shoes for six months!
You bet I told him!
I have no further questions.
Doctor, would you tell us your field of expertise?
I'm a psychiatrist specializing
in the treatment of sexual disorders.
-Did you have occasion to interview the plaintiff?
-Yes, I did.
Would you tell us what, if any, conclusions
you reached regarding his sexual orientation?
I found Mr. Salter to be both heterosexual
and age
-appropriate in his social and sexual development.
-Doctor, are you familiar with this machine?
-Yes, I am.
ANNE: Would you tell us what it is and what it does?
It's a penile plethysmograph.
It measures the degree of arousal a man undergoes
when presented with various stimuli
both visual and auditory.
It operates by the use of a strain gauge
placed around the shaft of the penis.
In your opinion, Doctor, was its use on this man indicated?
It most decidedly was not indicated.
ANNE: And why do you say that?
Because far less intrusive, and in my opinion,
far more reliable diagnostic techniques
told you all you needed to know about this man.
Simply put, he is not a pedophile.
Doctor, in your opinion, does Ben Salter represent
a thr*at to the children who were placed in his care?
Absolutely not.
Thank you. I have nothing further.
Tell us, Doctor, is there ever an occasion
when a penile plethysmograph would be indicated?
If you're trying to determine an appropriate treatment modality,
if you're designing some sort of aversion therapy,
or if the results of other diagnostic techniques are inconclusive.
But the results of your diagnostic techniques were conclusive.
-That's right.
-Doctor, you administered various psychological tests
-to Ben Salter, did you not?
-Yes, I did.
And these tests were voluntary, were they not, Doctor?
You asked a question, he thought about it, and he gave you an answer.
-That's right.
-The penile plethysmograph test
measures an involuntary response, doesn't it, Doctor?
-Yes.
-So when the school's clinician
got to the only test that Ben Salter couldn't fake, and he backs off,
doesn't that raise the tiniest question in your mind
about how conclusive your diagnosis is?
He stated his reasons, and I agree with him.
Is it possible that Ben Salter could have fooled you, Doctor?
I've been practicing for a long time, Mr. Colquit.
It's not likely.
I asked you whether or not it were possible.
Anything's possible.
That's what we're afraid of.
I have nothing further, Doctor. Thank you.
-Hey, Gwen.
-Hi, Arnie.
-How's the bar review going?
-Fine.
Handling the pressure?
Hey, you all right?
Every minute I'm awake, all I want to do is sleep.
Every minute I try and sleep, I lie in bed, my eyes wide open,
trying the hell to understand collateral estoppel,
or
-
- or
-
- or prior restraint,
or
- or the rule against perpetuities.
Do you understand the rule against perpetuities?
-No.
-Oh, great.
Nobody does.
How does anybody pass the bar exam?
Gwen, you can't get hung up on what you don't know?
You don't have to know everything.
Right. Just enough to pass.
That's right.
I don't know, Arnie. Why did I ever think I could be a lawyer?
What kind of bright idea was that?
Hey, come on.
No, really, did my parents want me to be a lawyer? No.
Did I grow up watching To k*ll a Mockingbird
thrilled with the knowledge that I could be the next Atticus Finch?
No. I don't even remember deciding I wanted to go to law school.
-I don't remember that.
-What's the worst thing that can happen?
You fail. So what?
I failed the first time the first time I took the exam.
You can take it as many times as you want.
I don't think I could survive
going through this one more time.
What was your reaction when you first heard that Ben Salter
was accused of sexually molesting a child?
Shock. Complete and utter shock.
This, after all, was someone I considered a friend.
-COLQUIT: What did you do?
-Pending the resolution
of the criminal charges, I suspended him.
When the charges were dropped, I called him into my office
to map out a plan for his reinstatement.
Why did you need a plan? Why didn't you just reinstate him?
There was a lot of concern on the part of the parents.
-That's why.
-How did you seek to address that concern?
By conducting our own investigation of Ben
and then by being able to go to the parents
and say he got a clean bill of health.
And did Mr. Salter indicate to you
That he was willing to cooperate with such an examination.
-Yes, he did.
-And did he, in fact, do so?
Up to a point, he did.
When it came time to use the plethysmograph,
he refused.
I had no choice but to fire him.
Would you tell the court why you felt that to be the case?
The question had been raised as to the advisability
of letting Ben be around children.
That question had to be settled, and it had to be settled by him.
COLQUIT: I have no further questions.
I assume you were relieved when the charges were dropped, were you not?
-Profoundly relieved.
-You just had the problem
of those parents to deal with.
-That's right.
-Had any of the parents actually communicated
their concern over Mr. Salter's reinstatement?
If I had reinstated him, I would have heard from them. Believe me.
These people pay $, a year to put their kids in our school.
And you figure that entitled him to have a wire hooked up to this man's genitals, right?
-Objection.
-JUDGE: Sustained.
What other requirements would you be willing
to impose on your faculty
in an effort to please the parents?
-I don't know what you mean.
-What if there were a teacher
that someone suspected of being gay?
Being gay isn't a crime.
What crime did Ben Salter commit?
He was accused of molesting a child.
What crime did he commit?
So far as we know, he didn't commit any crime.
Then why were you treating him like a criminal?
I was doing my job as headmaster
by protecting our students and the school at which I was employed.
What were you protecting the school from, Mr. Hollis?
From the possibility of being sued
in case Ben Salter did commit a crime,
in case he wasn't age
-appropriate in his sexual orientation.
ANNE: In other words, this was a legal strategy, wasn't it?
You were preparing for a lawsuit and you wanted to be able to say
if anything happened, that it was the machine's fault and not yours.
I think that way because I have to think that way,
because lawyers like you make me think that way.
You had a prosecutor dismiss the charges against this man.
You had a lie detector test and a psychiatric evaluation.
Both conclude that he was not a pedophile,
and still that wasn't enough for you.
No, it wasn't.
And it wouldn't have been enough for anyone in my position.
Most schools would have dropped him on his head.
I'm bending over backwards to give him back his job.
I'm spending a fortune to employ state
-of
-the
-art technology.
And he wants to pick and choose what he will and will not do?
He's lucky I'm willingto strap him up to that machine.
Thankyou, Mr. Hollis. I have no further questions.
♪♪
Describe for us, if you will, Mr. Beaudine,
the first time you noticed Ed Hicks.
It was opening day of the season.
He was yelling at me for the mistakes he said I made back in .
-I was supposed to pretend it didn't happen?
-Mr. Hicks.
-Yeah.
-How was it that you were able
to tell from whom those remarks were coming?
-How could I tell?
-Yeah.
When other people sat down, he stood up.
Uh, when other people got quiet, he got loud.
When other people got loud, he got louder.
You couldn't help but notice this guy.
And did his behavior continue in a similar fashion beyond opening day?
Yeah, how about all season long?
What was it that caused you to go into the stand and
-
-
and physically as*ault Ed Hicks?
I just settled this paternity suit,
and, uh, it was painful.
It was messy.
And even though it was in the papers,
when he mentioned it, I went nuts.
I had to listen to his voice for five and a half months.
I'm sorry that it happened,
but hearing him talk about my personal life
on that particular day was more than I could take.
JONATHAN: I've nothing further.
How much money did you make last year, Val?
Objection. Irrelevant.
Hey, Judge! Is it irrelevant to them?
I'm going to allow it.
HICKS: Hey! [claps hands]
Way to go, Judge!
Excuse me. How much, Val?
I made . million.
. million?
Whoa! [chuckles]
How much is that per game? Do you know?
-I don't know.
-Well, let's look it up
-
-
games into . million,
that's
-
- Whoa!
It's a little more than $,.
There are probably other guys in this league
-who make more money than I do.
-Really?
There's probably who had a better season.
-[laughing]
-I was hurt.
You were hurt? So what were you doing playing hurt?
-Who were you helping?
-Objection. Your Honor!
Sustained. We're not here to discuss
Mr. Beaudine's performance on the field, Mr. Hicks.
Understood, Your Honor.
Do you know you were called out on strikes times last year?
-JONATHAN: Objection.
-Mr. Hicks.
There were some bad calls in there, Mr. Hicks.
Let's not start crying about the ump now! Do me a favor!
Gentlemen, enough! If you wanna argue the fine points of baseball,
do it on your own time.
Why did you hit me, Val?
I hit you because you wouldn't shut up!
Why'd you hit me in front of my kid?
I'm sorry. I didn't see your kid.
Let me ask you something.
Do you ever listen to what I'm saying?
I can't help listening to it.
You can't help hearing.
What I'm asking is, do you ever listen?
Look it, I've got a manager,
I've got coaches, I've got teammates,
I got people, I've got friends.
I got enough people to listen to who actually know what they're talking about.
I don't need to listen to you!
My son came home from school, and right away I knew something was wrong.
How did you know?
Well, because I'm his mother.
Mother's know.
What, if anything, did you do?
I talked to him. It took a while,
but he finally told me what was wrong.
He told me that his teacher, Ben Salter,
-had molested him.
-Objection. Heresay.
This is being used to demonstrate
the state of mind of the witness, Your Honor.
-I'll allow it.
-Your Honor, I want the jury instructed
that this statement by the witness's child
is being admitted solely to demonstrate
the witness's state of mind and should not be taken as fact.
JUDGE: The jury is so advised.
What, if anything, did you do?
First, I called the police, and then I called the school.
And you continue to believe that your child was molested by this man.
-Yes, I do.
-Despite the fact that the district attorney's office
found there to be insufficient evidence to proceed to trial.
District attorneys often find insufficient evidence to proceed to trial,
but that does not shake my conviction one iota.
I believe my child.
COLQUIT: I have nothing further.
Had your son ever been sexually assaulted
prior to that day at school?
-Objection. Irrelevant.
-It's being offered to demonstrate
-the witness's state of mind.
-I'll allow it.
-ANNE: Had he?
-Yes.
Who was it that molested him that time?
His father, my ex
-husband.
You first accused your ex
-husband of sexual molestation
while the two of you were in the middle of a divorce,
-isn't that right?
-Yes, I did.
That was one of the reasons he and I got a divorce.
Tell us, was he ever tried for the crime of sexual molestation?
-No, he wasn't.
-Why was that?
The district attorney felt there was insufficient evidence.
Do you think that means that I'm crazy?
Ask that the witness confine her remarks to answering the question she's being asked.
The witness will refrain from engaging in colloquy
with plaintiff counsel.
Does your son's father have visitation rights?
Yes, he does.
Does he have unsupervised visitation rights?
-Yes. It's safe to assume then, is it not,
that there was not only insufficient evidence to support a criminal prosecution,
there was insufficient evidence to prevent him from being alone
with the child you claim he molested.
You can be sure that, if it were up to me, that wouldn't be the case.
Was it you or your ex
-husband who wanted to keep your son enrolled at Sunny Hills?
That doesn't have anything to do with this.
Ask that the witness be directed to answer the question.
-It was him.
-Your husband got to keep the house in Brentwood, didn't he?
-COLQUIT: Objection.
-Overruled.
It was his before we got married.
You wanted to enroll your son in a school that was close to where you lived,
close to where you had to move to,
because you couldn't afford a house in Brentwood.
You were the one that had to pick him up,
you were the one that had to take him to school,
and the judge who presided over your divorce
required you to keep him in Sunny Hills.
The judge listened to your husband about that
just the way you listen to your husband about everything else.
Do you think I made it up?
Do you think I made this whole thing up?
These things happen.
People's lives are ruined.
Men do whatever they wanna do,
and lives are ruined.
Women and children's lives are ruined.
Did your son tell you that he'd been molested, Mrs. Hartshorn?
Or did you tell him?
He told me...
and I believed him.
I have nothing further.
-Mr. Henderson.
-Tony.
-Right. Tony.
-And you are?
-Gwen Taylor.
-What can I do for you, Gwen Taylor?
I was wondering if you could recommend a tutor or an outside class
or someplace where I can get a little extra help preparing,
because otherwise I'm not gonna make it through this.
-Everybody feels that way.
-No, you don't understand.
I don't
-
- I don't have a law degree. I've been apprenticing.
I haven't had a lot of practice being tested like this.
I'm going under, and I really need some help.
-Hi, Tony.
-Hi, Cheryl.
Are we going to cover third
-party beneficiaries today?
-Yes, we are.
-Good, 'cause I'm hopelessly confused.
You see? You're not alone.
Tony, I passed hopelessly confused last Tuesday.
I learned all these mnemonics
-
-
"MY LEGS" for written contracts
and "COPE" for the rules against perpetuities
-
-
but now I can't remember what the letters stand for.
-Gwen.
-Does the "E" in "LEGS" stand for
"executor" or is it "escrow"?
-The "O"
-
-
-Gwen, I will help you.
-You will?
-Is tomorrow night soon enough?
-Yeah.
-Good. Tomorrow night it is.
I can't believe you have time enough to help me.
I'll make time. I like a challenge.
Come on.
Imagine that, every morning you go to work,
you encounter the same person.
Wherever you are, there he is.
And all day every day, he yells at you.
He reminds you of mistakes you've made.
He tells you what you're not doing as well as you should,
what opportunities you've missed, what
-
-
what a disappointment you've been.
And he comments on your personal life...
loud enough...
so that everybody can hear.
He won't stop. So you try to ignore him.
You try to concentrate on your work,
and you tell yourself it's part of the job,
it's part of the job.
And one way or another, you manage not to lose your temper...
until that day...
until that day when the circumstances in your life
are such that this
-
- this guy yelling at you
just pushes you over the edge.
Could happen to me.
Could happen to you.
It happened to him.
Val Beaudine is a professional baseball player,
ladies and gentlemen, he is not a trained bear.
Yes, he's paid. He's paid very well to play baseball in front of people.
And, yes, he should be able
to take the booing along with the cheering.
But what's a little tough to take
is the relentless and obsessive taunting by a man like Ed Hicks.
I mean, just think
-
- think what it would be like
if it were him waiting for you every day at work.
Every day for five and a half months.
I ask you to imagine that right now...
before you render your verdict.
How do you do this? [chuckles]
What, am I
-
- I'm supposed to get up here and make a speech?
Huh? I'm gonna get up here, I'm gonna make a speech,
and
-
- and everyone's gonna listen to me?
It's pretty good.
Doesn't happen to me very often. [chuckles]
I mean, when you're a kid, you dream everybody will listen to you.
You dream about being center of attention.
Dream big.
Dream you'd be a senator
or a movie star or a
-
- or a, you know, baseball player.
You don't dream you're gonna sell shoes.
That's just something you wind up doing, like
-
- and
-
-
that and
-
- and watching baseball games.
Time stands still at a baseball game.
There's no clock. Who you are doesn't matter.
Anybody can go, if you come up with the money.
All right, so maybe it sounds stupid,
but % of my take
-home pay goes to buy the tickets.
I used to go with my father, and now my son goes with me.
I'm
-
- I'm a nervous, overweight guy
who drives an hour and a half back and forth to work
to make . a year selling shoes.
My kid's not gonna yell from the rooftops about what his old man does for a living.
He's got nothing to brag about in that department.
He's stuck with me.
So I take him to the baseball game.
And I make a lot of noise...
so my kid'll see that I love something,
and he'll love that thing, too.
All right, you may not believe this,
but we're at the ballgame, I am a real big sh*t to my kid.
Nobody knows the game better. Nobody yells louder!
And that may not be a lot, but it's something!
It is something.
Did Sunny Hills School act reasonably
in requiring Mr. Salter to take this test,
the penile plethysmograph?
Much has been made of the test's invasiveness.
We all feel discomfort at hearing it described,
in imagining it administered to ourselves.
Admittedly, it's hard to view it as anything
other than a violation of one's privacy.
I would urge you to keep one thing in perspective, though.
It's not as much a violation as being sexually molested,
and that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we are talking about.
If a school had any basis to suspect one of its teachers
of molesting children sexually,
and they did not do anything they could to prevent that,
the next sound you would hear would be the snapping open
of attorneys' briefcases
hell
-bent on suing that school for all it's worth.
The penile plethysmograph is the fastest means we have
of breaking through a suspect's denial.
Its results may not be conclusive...
but they definitely give us a piece of the puzzle.
They enable us to identify who is a thr*at to our children.
If any of you
-
- If you or if someone close to you
was sexually abused as a child,
you understand the enormity of that thr*at.
And the momentary discomfort or embarrassment
that Ben Salter may go through as a result of this test
pales in significance when compared to the misery
and the pain that a victim
of sexual abuse carries with them
the rest of their life.
I would urge you to render your verdict accordingly.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am not here to defend the sexual abuse of children.
My adversary has done his level best, however,
to make it appear that I am.
He knows that if you are sufficiently caught up
in the drumbeat of fear and suspicion,
you won't bother to distinguish
between that which has been alleged
and that which has been proven.
And if you don't bother to do that, he wins.
This case terrifies me.
I look at what happened to Ben Salter,
and I understand how it was that women called witches
were b*rned at the stake.
A person stands accused of that which we as a society revile and condemn.
He refuses to have wires attached to his body,
wires which bypass the conscious mind,
which measure not guilt or innocence,
but the physiology of some disembodied part of his anatomy
as if that defines who he is.
As a result, he loses his job and has his reputation ruined.
Does it behoove him to suffer whatever ordeal is put in front of him
in order to undue that?
Only if you're willing to scrap the constitution
and cast out the most basic tenet of our judicial system
-
-
innocent until proven guilty.
This is not a case about child abuse, ladies and gentlemen.
It's a case about an innocent man fighting for his right
to hold on to the last shred of what it means to be human.
-Hi.
-Hi.
-How you doing?
-Okay.
-How's the bar review going?
-Okay.
-How's Lucy?
-She's great.
I was, um, thinking about her,
and I was thinking about what you said the other day.
Gwen, this really can wait until after the bar.
I don't think it should.
I
-
- I don't think I can be...
the constant that she needs in her like, Daniel.
and they're truth is I don't think I can be the constant you need, either.
So...
So.
I thought this would feel terrible
but at least be a relief,
and instead it just feels terrible.
-Hey.
-Oh, I'm so sorry.
So am I.
JUDGE: Has the jury reached a verdict?
-We have, Your Honor.
-What say you?
We find for the plaintiff Edward Hicks
and award the sum of one dollar in damages.
JUDGE: So say you all?
-One dollar?
-Mr. Hicks.
They don't give I.Q. tests for jury duty, do they?
-JUDGE: Mr. Hicks. Bailiff.
-Hey, morons, here's a question for you.
How could he be guilty and only owe one dollar?
-JUDGE: Listen to me, Mr. Hicks.
-If I give you a dollar,
-do I get to b*at you up?
-JUDGE: Mr. Hicks!
If you don't stop haranguing the jury,
I'm going to have the officer of the court place you under arrest.
Ah!
The jury's dismissed with the thanks of the court.
This court's adjourned.
-Hey, Ed? Ed!
-What?
What, you wanna rub my nose in it? You wanna b*at me up again?
-The jury already did that.
-Hey, Val...
you sure this is gonna be constructive?
Jonathan, I got a little business with this man.
Oh. What kind of business?
I wanna give you something.
You gonna give me the dollar?
No, I'm not gonna give you the dollar.
I wanna give you this for your boy.
What's this for?
You showed me something yesterday.
I thought you were just a pain in the ass, which you are,
but you're more than that.
You love the game. You love your kid.
And I respect you for that.
I'd like it if you realize that I'm a human being
and respect me, too.
-Is that the real deal?
-I used it all last season.
Including when you blew the double play against the Astros?
Yeah, including that.
Thanks.
It'll mean a lot to him.
It means a lot to me.
[chuckles]
All right.
Hey, sorry I b*at you up.
I'll live.
See you at the ballpark?
[chuckles] Count on it!
Will the foreperson please read the verdict?
We the jury in the matter of Salter v. Sunny Hills School
find for the plaintiff and award $, in damages.
The court hereby orders the plaintiff be reinstated.
The jury is discharged with thanks of the court.
This court is adjourned.
[sighs] I think we need to talk.
I'm not worried about the monetary damages,
they'll be covered by our insurance carrier.
The problem comes with reinstating you.
What is it you're asking, Mr. Hollis?
I'm asking for you to teach someplace else.
Now, why would I wanna do that?
Because it'll be a hell of a lot more comfortable for you someplace else.
I'm telling you this as a friend, Ben.
There are quite a few parents that don't want you back.
They've said to me that if you do come back,
they want absolute assurances
that you won't be alone with their children.
I'm going to have to put a monitor in your classrooms.
You do that, and I'll have you back in court
so fast, your head will spin.
The judge's order calls for his reinstatement, period
-
-
no conditions, no qualifications,
no holding him out to be someone who can't be trusted.
She's right, Richard, you can't do that.
Is it worth it, Ben?
I'm going to be in Room Monday morning, Richard.
I expect to have a second
-grade class in there as well.
You wanna to have a second
-grade class in there?
Then you call the parents of those second
-graders
and tell them they have nothing to worry about.
Tell them that no matter what their fears are,
if they wanna continue to have their kids to Sunny Hills,
you're gonna be their teacher.
-Do you wanna tell them that?
-No...
because that's your job.
That's what you have to tell them.
You have to tell them. You have to stand up and say
that Ben Salter is coming back to teach,
because Ben Salter's done nothing wrong.
He's not a child molester.
He's not a suspected child molester.
He's a teacher.
He's a good teacher.
It appears as though I have no choice,
so okay.
For what it's worth, though...
I think you're going to be miserable.
You telling me that as a friend?
[door closes]
[siren wails in distance]
Okay. You get in under the exclusionary rule how?
-Independent source.
-Independent source.
Intervening act of free will by the defendant
-
-
...of free will of defendant, inevitable discovery,
-live witness testimony, and court I.D.
-Good.
And, remember, if the exclusionary rule is on the essay question
-
-
Mention the exceptions whether they're relevant.
-Get in that I know what they are.
-Right.
Okay. How about the rule against perpetuities?
The rule against perpetuities.
"COPE."
Contingent remainders,
option to purchase land,
powers of appointment
-
-
Oh! Executor interest?
You love those mnemonics, don't you?
Yeah, they make me feel more secure.
I really
-
- I wanna thank you for taking the time to help me.
I feel calmer now than I have in the last few weeks.
And there was a moment back there when I actually pictured myself as a lawyer.
It was really great.
I can't believe I did that.
Mmm.
[clears throat]
I can't believe I did that.
Why did you do that?
[clears throat]
I don't know.
I, um...
I felt like I was standing outside myself watching me kiss you.
Look, it's late, we're both tired. It's okay.
I never do things like that. It's totally out of character for me.
Why don't we just get back to work? Um...
Long as you're sure you're okay
and you forgive me for being so out of line.
Yeah, I'm okay.
And I'm
-
- Yeah, I forgive you.
All right.
[clears throat] Okay, statute of frauds.
What contracts need to be in writing?
All right. Right.
Where the considerations marriage,
where the duration of the contract is more than a year,
suretyship, land,
for the sale of goods valued at more than $,
and for an executor to pay the debts of the estate...
♪♪ [theme]
07x20 - Testing, Testing, 1…2…3…4
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High-powered law firm of McKenzie, Brackman, Chaney and Kuzak handles both criminal and civil cases, but the office politics and romance often distract them from the courtroom.
High-powered law firm of McKenzie, Brackman, Chaney and Kuzak handles both criminal and civil cases, but the office politics and romance often distract them from the courtroom.