Legal Questions - Re: Sleepers (Movie)

Cafe Society
1

I just watched Sleepersthe other night. I had seen portions of it in the past but I don’t believe I’d ever watched it right from the beginning before. I really enjoyed it, to a point. I’ll skip down a few lines to avoid spoilers (I know, it’s a twenty-one year old movie, but still) …

… before I get into my questions, let me give a brief synopsis of the movie, for the sake of reference:

Four Hell’s Kitchen boys, around 13 or 14, pull a prank that goes horribly wrong and they get sent to reform school for a year. While there they are systematically beaten, tortured and raped by a group of guards. Years later, two of the boys grow up to be vicious street criminals, running a Hell’s Kitchen gang. They run into one of their old tormentors in a bar one night and murder him in cold blood.

The other two boys grow up to be a reporter and lawyer. The lawyer, now an ADA, accepts the case prosecuting his two friends. The premise is that since none of the boys/men ever told anyone about their experiences and the records had all been expunged and nobody even knew of his connection with the criminals, he could throw the case and open up a can of worms to track down the other offenders and get the reform school investigated.

Here’s where my questions come in. My description of the movie fails a little, for I suppose you’d have to see the movie for the full details of the trial, but wouldn’t a half-competent judge see right though this charade and haul the ADA before the bar quicker than he can say Sam Waterston? For example, there is a scene where the ADA gets one of the guards who were responsible for the abuse up on the stand, ostensibly as a character witness for the victim. While up there, the defense attorney (who’s completely in on the sham and has scripted questions to ask) gets him to admit to his crimes. Slowly, question by question, he admits to pretty much everything. When he’s done, all the judge says is something like, “you may not want to travel very far. I imagine some people will have questions for you.”

That’s where it all went off the rails for me. First of all, would a judge even allow that line of questioning to continue? The witness was sworn in, but as far as I know he hadn’t been read his rights and he’s basically singing like a canary. I would think the judge would halt the testimony for the sake of avoiding a mistrial alone. Secondly, “don’t go very far?” He just admitted to systematically raping boys under his care, why wouldn’t he be immediately taken into custody by the bailiffs?

There’s another point that was pretty much addressed as plot hole I read somewhere. Robert De Niro’s character (a priest) lies on the stand to provide an alibi for the two defendants, going so far as to produce ticket stubs to the basketball game he said they went to. But that was the very first time the alibi was ever mentioned in court. No evidence nor claim had previously been made that they were at the basketball game, so that testimony just pops up out of nowhere and* thoop, swish*, that’s the game. I don’t believe that would fly, but then again the ADA is throwing the case, so he it let it go with no objections. But again, why wouldn’t a competent judge pull him aside and ask him, “Dude, what the fuck are you doing?” or however that translates into legalese.

I was really loving this movie right up to the end, when it all sort of took a left turn into too unrealistic for me. The author of the book the movie is based on claims it is a true story, though I believe the consensus is he’s full of shit. It never all really happened.

2

I thought it was explicitly stated that Brad Pitts character needed to tread a very fine line, that he needed to be seen to lose the case through incompetence rather than losing it intentionally? I thought it was clear that it wasn’t as simple as him just throwing the case.

3

I suppose that goes without saying, but my point is that I don’t think he did that very believably - within the context of the movie, that is.

4

I don’t remember the movie well enough to comment on the questions in the OP but, what I do remember is that this movie came out at the time when the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” was very popular. This movie was a “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” goldmine. It almost made the game too easy.

5

It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie but my memory is that Brad Pitt was basically allowing his own career to be destroyed by this case to expose the guards’ behavior.

6

IIRC, you only get read your rights when taken into custody. The witness was not in custody. He could have invoked his right against self-incrimination at any time. The Judge could have warned him, but I don’t think he is obligated to do so.
Someone may be correcting me in a minute.

7

In the recent thread on cops planting evidence, it was stated that the accused enjoys greater latitude in invoking the 5th than a witness.

As far as leaving town vs immediate custody, he may not be chargeable, statute of limitations and all that.

8

Nope. No reason to fear a mistrial from that.

A witness (not the accused) is perfectly entitled to assert his Fifth Amendment privilege to avoid incriminating himself, yes. But there’s no reason to “read him his rights,” which is a requirement only for (a) custodial interrogation and (b) where you wish to use the purportedly compelled testimony against the witness. Using his testimony under oath as evidence for either the defense or prosecution of other defendants is perfectly fine.

Remember too that in general, Constitutional rights may not be asserted vicariously. That means that the cops cannot search your dresser drawer without probable cause and a warrant and then use the fruits of that search against you, but they CAN use the fruits of that search against me. I can’t complain that my rights were violated by the illegal search; I have no privacy rights in your dresser drawer.

So whether the guard’s rights were violated by the questions is (generally) irrelevant when the evidence obtained pursuant to that violation is used against someone else.

Maybe he could be – I’d have to look at the state’s law on warrantless arrest. And maybe the judge could have cured that by sua sponte issuing such a warrant. But in general, a trial judge in the middle of a trial won’t do that.

In my jurisdiction, an alibi cannot be presented in court out of the blue. Rule 3A:11 requires alibi notices be provided to the prosecution at least ten days in advance of trial. Failure to comply can mean that the court bars the introduction entirely.

9

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the whole “constitutional rights may not be asserted vicariously,” thing.

If I understand things correctly, Fred could murder his wife and then go over to his friend Bob’s house and give him the gun to hide. Then if a cop just randomly shows up at Bob’s house and says, “I’m searching the place. Too bad, so sad,” and finds the gun with blood and fingerprints and hair and semen all over it (I’m only going by your average CSI episode, here), that gun can be used as evidence against Fred for murdering his wife - even though it was obtained via an illegal search - but it can’t be used against Bob to charge him with abetting, or something.
Is that right?

10

I remember wondering when I saw the movie “Why would a victim need a character witness?”

I can understand the prosecution calling a witness to say that the victim needed killin’, or the defense calling a witness to say that the accused killer is a sweetheart of a guy, but are character witnesses ever called to say what a great guy the victim is?

I do remember at the time that the “based on a true story” was picked apart like hyenas after a KFC barrel, but it was more about the events described at the reform school and how all kinds of facts contradicted them. I don’t remember details, but it should be easily googlable.

11

Yes, that struck me odd too. It seemed short sighted on the director’s part. Through the viewpoint of the antagonists, we the audience, know what a piece of shit the victim was and why those guys killed him, but to the judge and jury and anyone else in the movie not in on the sham, they just know that the dead guy is a dead guy. Character reference for what reason?

Maybe in sentencing, you might get a, “you killed the kindest, most gentlest blahbidiblah …” but not in a trial.

12

Painting the victim as a sweet, kind, old man would go to making it seem unlikely he attacked the defendant, thus making a self-defense case harder to prove. I mean, in movie law, not in real law. :stuck_out_tongue:

13

Yes, exactly correct.