For this assignment I chose the movie “The Clovehitch Killer” By: Christopher Ford. This movie was released on September 22, 2018

This is my second time watching the movie because I really enjoyed watching “The Clovehitch Killer ”. I love watching anything that is thrilling and mysterious. This movie was essentially about a perfect family that had the afternoon as “family time” and they even went to church. The gossip that was going around at Tyler school is that there is a serial killer going around and killing people. Every time the serial killer would kill someone the serial killer wouldn’t leave any trace behind or any evidence. There was this girl that was into solving mysteries and she started off with the Clovehitch killer. One day Tyler went into his Dad’s shed and he noticed a lot of spooky things that would have him thinking that his dad is the serial killer. As Tyler and the girl team up they keep finding evidence that his father is the killer. For example, they find pictures of the victim along with their driver’s license. Come to find out that Tyler caught his father in action about to kill a lady so the girl  teamed up with Tyler to take him to the police but Tyler’s father shot himself instead. Then the girl tells Tyler that she was into this stuff because the clovehitch killer killed her mom and that was one of the pictures attached with a driver license that Tyler saw in his dad’s shed. 

I don’t think that this movie portrayed any legal concept in this course. I was expecting for the father to get caught by the police or someone and arrested. Taken to jail and shown the trail that the father was supposed to get. One thing I would say is that the girl’s grandmother had something to do with some legal work that led the girl into this mystery. One thing I would say is that they could have shown the police involved more instead of the girl doing herself with Tyler. Almost every movie like this has a similar ending except for this one. 

If the father was caught in like a mid movie with him getting arrested. If the author showed Tyler’s father in the court and the trial of Tyler’s father that would portray some sort of legal concept from this course. Because we would have seen how the attorney goes back and forth in court and how the judge decides the sentencing of the father. I was a little upset when I finished watching this movie b/c I realized that it didn’t show any legal concept from our course. 

For my Law in Culture review I chose the movie Legally Blonde directed by Robert Luketic released July 13^th 2001. The movie holds a 4.7-star rating on Google and has spawned 3 spin-offs with a 4^th being set to released in theaters May 20 2022. Since its release, many movies have parodied its more well-known scenes, with the line “So you’re breaking up with me because I’m too…. Blonde?” even becoming a viral trend on the social media app Tik-Tok.

The movie is about a 21-year-old blonde girl named Elle Woods and her quest to win back the man who she believes to be her true love. The movie starts off with Elle and her then boyfriend Warner going on a date on which she believes he will propose to her, he does the opposite and breaks up with her because she is too blonde and he says he needs to marry somebody serious if he’s ever going to become a senator like the other men in his family. She leaves the restaurant crying and locks herself in her dorm for a week crying and eating until her two best friends eventually take her to get her nails done. After seeing a newspaper clipping with Warner’s brother and his fiancée she decides to attend Harvard Law School in order to prove that she can be serious and that she is worthy of marriage.

The story includes the murder of the millionaire Henthory Windham and the trial of his wife fitness enthusiast Brooke Windham who is 34 years younger and the primary suspect since she was seen standing over his dead body by his daughter and her “boyfriend” the pool boy Salvator. Brook also happens to have graduated from the same sorority Elle attended before leaving for Harvard. Elle goes to get Brooke’s alibi since she won’t speak to anybody else, it’s then revealed that Brooke won’t admit to where she was because she was getting liposuction and if the public finds out her career will be ruined. Once she returns Elle’s boss asks her what the alibi was however, she refused to reveal it since it was a private discussion between her and a client. This is would be considered confidentiality as it is considered malpractice to reveal a client’s private information to a third party or anybody, they request it not to be revealed to. After the witness testimony where Salvator claims to be having an affair with Brooke, Elle realizes that he’s gay when he is able to correctly identify the brand name of her heels. One of the defense lawyers uses this to get Salvator to admit to being gay while on the stand which invalidates his claims of an affair. During the testimony of the daughter, it is revealed that she was the one who shot her father and not her step mother because she was mad that her father would marry somebody her age.

At first, I thought I would hate the movie but as I watched it I realized it’s pretty good and it made me laugh a couple of times too. The movie opened my eyes too as it addressed real issues women face in a field like law which used to be dominated by men such as discrimination and sexual harassment. I say this because the law professor who had originally hired Elle revealed that he only did so because she thought she would be willing to sleep with him to further her career and once she declined he started saying that she would never be able to win the case simply because she’s just a dumb blonde. I bring this up because growing up I was used to seeing more women lawyers than men so something like that happening in a movie as lighthearted as this one really caught me off guard and showed me that if even a comedy movie brings it up it has to be a very common issue even in law.

For my law in culture review, I watched How to Get Away with Murder. This show was released on September 25, 2014 and lasted until May 14, 2020. It has six seasons and sixty episodes. It is about a brilliant defense attorney and part-time professor (Annalise Keating), who teaches criminal law or as she preferred to call it “How to get away with murder”. Every year she selects a group of her students to go and work with her at her law firm. The students who were chosen, worked for her as paralegals throughout the show while being investigated for high-profile cases in which they broke the law, but surprisingly got away with it.

The show is mostly about criminal cases; nevertheless, there are several scenarios that portrays what has been thought in our classes. For instance, the way the federal court system works. In our Civil Procedure class, we learned that Federal courts have two types of jurisdiction, federal question jurisdiction and diversity jurisdiction. On the show Annalise takes a class action lawsuit to the U.S. Supreme Court. In order to get there, the case had to meet the requirements (in this case federal question jurisdiction) which were violations to the 6 and 14 amendments, then Annalise had to go through to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, where she lost and finally appeal to U.S Supreme Court. They emphasized how the U.S Supreme Court only take 2% of the cases submitted, but she still submitted a writ of certiorari, which was granted. Other aspect that portrayed our classes specially Introduction to paralegal studies was the violation of the 3C’s confidentiality, competence and conflicts of interest. I cannot recall how many times they broke them, but I could see how it affected every case.

I would say the show has some scenarios that are not realistic at all; however, most of it did accurately portray what the law field is, for example the paralegals conducting research, interviewing witness, the consequences of violating ethical duties, lawyer arguing with each other on court and the court system. My favorite episode was Lahey v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania which is the one where Annalise goes to the U.S. Supreme Court. On this episode Olivia Pope from scandal (another TV show related to law) come alone and help Annalise with the class action lawsuit brought to the Supreme Court. I would definitely recommend this show, it is entertaining and a little bit addictive I would say.

The documentary The Women and The Murderer directed by Mona Achache and Patricia Touranchea and was released on September 9th, 2021.

The Women and The Murderer is based on a true crime that took place in France in the 90’s. From the year 1991 through 1997 serial killer, Guy Georges, had gruesomely murdered eight women. During this time France did not have a DNA database and there were many completely against it. Throughout the documentary the viewers are introduced to many women from attorneys, victims’ mothers and sisters, one victim that was able to get away and a court journalist. They all tell the story about how they all worked together to find, arrest, and prosecute Guy Georges in a field that was dominated primarily by men at the time. 

The whole documentary takes place in France through their court system however, there are a lot of similarities to the US court system. There was the lead detective (inspector), Martine Monteil, the defence attorney, Frederique Pons, and the plaintiff attorney, Solange Doumic just like what would happen in a US trial. Guy Georges had been killing women from the early 90’s but wasn’t arrested and put on trial until 2001. This is where the statute of limitation would come into play. Guy Georges was given a fair trial, there was a jury, he had a lawyer, he was put on the stand for questioning just like any other trial would play out and it only lasted five days until he confessed on the stand, making his trial “speedy”.

I think The Women and The Murderer accurely potryes the legal field even though it isn’t based in the US.The documernrty shows the audience step by step before the trial even started, before they even knew who was killing these women in France. In the documentary, they present the evidence they had against him and talk about his confession and how long he would be going to prison for. I would recommend The Women and The Murderer because it shows how hard everyone worked to catch and prosecute Guy Georges. It shows the beginning all the way to the end and shows how powerful women can be even in a field that is dominated by men. It has made me more interested in the law and the legal profession seeing everything that goes into the trials and even before it. 

In my law in culture review, I was able to watch scandal. Scandal is a show about how a group of paralegals in a private law firm call them self’s gladiators. When it comes to paralegals of course you’re going to need the main lawyer to carry out the law which is named Olivia Pope. The show first aired in April 2012 with 7 amazing seasons. This show won many awards like NAACP Image Award, Peabody Award, BET Award for Best Actress, and many more.

The show only deals with criminal cases, no civil cases sadly but it does make the show more interesting. I think they do a pretty good job at portraying a real paralegal and lawyer, but it could be a little dramatic, It could just be the show side. 1 paralegal named Quinn Perkins, we saw her do a lot of things for Olivia. For example, she was able to file papers, interview clients, and many more.

My favorite episode was when a paralegal accidentally signed a paper that Olivia was supposed to sign. I watched the whole episode on how they went to court and the judge was confused on who Quinn was and the case was lost, and she lost her job for it and the law firm rep was ruined. I want to see how the show continues when I keep watching it. We even saw an appeal that went to the supreme court and many more different types of appeals.

“The Following” created by Kevin Williamson first aired in 2013 was about a serial killer ( Joe Carroll ) that ran a cult while in prison. He would get many visitors from people who fantasize over the books he would write. What he would do is, he will give each person ( someone who visited him) a chapter, this chapter would be about someone he wants to seek revenge on, The person assigned was the designated person that had to kill whoever the chapter was about. Eventually, he escaped from prison which led to a wild hunt for him as well as the cult he created. This show is about three seasons long towards the end of the third season he was captured and sentenced to the death penalty.

This show accurately portrayed how the legal system works in many ways that show will give all is watching is an insight into how difficult it may be interviewing suspects or witnesses many people have this concept that solving murder cases will be easy however the show shows the month criminal criminals will go through to cover up the crime they committed. Not only does it show the professional side of the legal system it also shows the emotional strain that is allotted to these people who have to perform such jobs, such as holding extremely heinous cases. 

The number one reason I would recommend watching this show is that it shows how long a case could take to solve. Many people don’t believe that it may take years to solve a cold case or a murder case or a rape case. This affected my view of long because when I did watch it I wasn’t sure which field in law I wanted to professionalize in. Quite frankly, I thought the law was boring.  However, this show made me notice how intriguing law can be if you allow it.

     In The Dark is a podcast series hosted by Madeleine Baran and produced by APM Reports. The podcast has three seasons with Season 2 focusing on the controversial case of Curtis Flowers. The first 17 episodes of the season were released in 2018, with an additional 3 episodes being released in 2020. According to the APM Reports blurb found here, the case involves Curtis Flowers, “a Black man from Winona, Mississippi, who was tried six times for the same crime. Flowers spent more than 20 years fighting for his life while a white prosecutor spent that same time trying just as hard to execute him.” 

     The topic of the podcast is the case of Curtis Flowers, who in 1996 was accused of shooting four people in a furniture store he had previously worked at called Tardy Furniture. That was just the beginning of his journey as Flowers spent 20+ years in jail in a cycle of trials and appeals all while being on death row. 

     A lot of different terms we learned came into play in the podcast. First of all, it does involve a trial, a defendant (Curtis Flowers), a prosecutor (District Attorney Doug Evans) since it was a criminal case, judges, a jury, a writ of certiorari was filed at one point, and a lot of appeals took place with the Mississippi Supreme Court and a few with the US Supreme Court. As we learned, if an appeal is overturned the case goes back to court and is able to have a re-trail. So since the conviction was overturned during the appeal process multiple times as well as a few of the trials resulting in a hung jury, Flowers went to trial six times for the same crime. Going off of that, since the original trial court found him guilty, he was able to be tried again and again. Double jeopardy only applies if he had been found not guilty in trial courts. Essentially, Flowers “had a first trial – six times” (quote from the APM article here).

     The case eventually made its way to the appeals court, Mississippi Supreme Court, and US Supreme Court because of all the flaws and unjust acts brought to light through the decades Flowers was on trial and in jail. Through the investigation and during the appeal process, it was brought up the various ways Evans catered things, including jury picking, in order to guarantee an unfair trial for Flowers. One of the biggest examples was Evans used almost all of his strikes on African American potential jurors (striking them at almost 4.5 times the rate than white potential jurors). In an odd point also made, Evans was able to be the prosecutor on all six trials against Flowers.

     It is an extremely compelling podcast and story; I suggest everyone give it a listen! I listened to it on Spotify but it is also available on iTunes and Google Podcasts. Normally I am not a podcast person but the way Baran and her colleagues handle the investigation is really amazing. Just by listening, you can tell they are determined for the truth and to expose things that went wrong with Flowers’ case. They push for justice and put in hours upon hours, completely immersing themselves in the case. They spend months in Mississippi speaking with countless people, those from the area and even Flowers’ family. I think it does accurately portray the corrupt and immoral side of the legal field and prison system. So many times we hear about cases where innocent people are on death row or in jail for crimes they did not commit. Or even in jail and serving an insane amount of time for a crime that should not be given that amount of sentencing. Although we all hope for the best and want to expect the best in people, these things happen. It also shows the side of the legal system that will fight for justice and fight for those who are being overlooked or even taken advantage of. 

The Culture source that I chose is The Clovehitch KIller which is a movie on Netflix. This movie is essentially about these murders were going on while Tyler was growing up. But nobody knew who the killer was. Tyler found disturbing pictures his father had which lead on to the 13 girls that were killed.

The source I pick is a documentary on netflix called “The women and The Murderer”. It is about two women who are trying to catch a serial killer in Paris, France.

The source I’m choosing to use is a TV drama series called “How to Get Away with Murder”. Which is about a lawyer, part-time professor who decided to pick a few of her students to go and work with her at her law firm. It is law-themed TV show that explores many different scenarios, reviews previous depositions, decisions and outcomes of high profile cases with the purpose of teaching and preparing law students to litigate; it also takes class action for incarcerated Black people.