Ok, I know they had to make it look like Selleck was a drug dealing scum bag, but come on, almost the whole case was based on the testimony of the drug-user that supposedly met with Selleck several times to buy or sell drugs to?? Hahaha come on!! That lawyer should have attacked his character and got his testimony thrown out.
shareThe whole setup for Rainwood going to jail is filled with holes so big you could drive a truck through. Despite that I still enjoy this movie and find is vastly underrated.
Three major problems with Rainwood's trial.
1) The two cops smashed into Rainwood's house without a warrant. If any officer of the law breaks into a property without a proper warrant, it will be deemed an illegal search by any judge. The only exception to this, is if there's "probably cause", eg, screams coming from inside, gunshots, etc. In this case, Rainwood's house was dead silent, and there was no signs of any drug deal or anything illegal going on. Given all of this, the whole thing would've been ruled an illegal search. There's just no two-ways about that. If evidence is collected from a property without a warrant, it would be excluded from trial. In this case, the drugs/gun found on Rainwood's property would be null/void in court.
2) The drug dealer who claims that he'd done dealings with Rainwood before should've gotten severely drilled by Rainwood's lawyer. A perfect strategy would've been for the drug-user to name time/places, and then PROVE that Rainwood wasn't there (either by showing work records of him being at work on airplanes or somewhere else with his wife). In any case, it wouldn't have been difficult for an average lawyer to make the drug-user's testimony worthless.
3) The crooked cops. Again, they should've gotten drilled by Rainwood's attorney, they would've cracked sooner or later. At the end of the day, they fabricated the whole thing.
Despite these three points, it's still an enjoyable movie. I'm guessing the director didn't want to turn this into a court room drama, which is fair enough. If you want to see that, go hire A Few Good Men.
Rainwood's lawyer sucked ass.
I'm happiest...in the saddle.
I think that game on tv in Jimmy's house could've been considered a source of probable drug deal noise. Seriously though, even with plotholes the movie works and that's all that counts.
share2) The drug dealer who claims that he'd done dealings with Rainwood before should've gotten severely drilled by Rainwood's lawyer. A perfect strategy would've been for the drug-user to name time/places, and then PROVE that Rainwood wasn't there (either by showing work records of him being at work on airplanes or somewhere else with his wife). In any case, it wouldn't have been difficult for an average lawyer to make the drug-user's testimony worthless
That's the American judicial system. It's very scary. There really are innocent people with records who were framed in just this way, or who had criminally crappy representation.
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(In reply to hwcperfect re Godzilla 2014)
LaLlama: Make me give a *beep* whats going on
Or whose cases were purposely dragged over a long time so as to exhaust the innocent person's assets and have to plead out as their lawyer walks as soon as the money runs out. And yes you can be denied a public defender.
shareI didn't know that about the public defender. I agree with everything else you've posted.
It's very easy to exhaust an innocent person's assets. It's very easy to get someone to cop a plea. It's very easy for lawyers to lie to persons about the consequences of such pleas.
It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.
So what happens when you fight? you have men in prison for years, ruined, because their wives convinced their kids to lie about sexual abuse. Kid gets older, child support money runs out, wife no longer on the warpath because she got her vengeance and now wants to 'make things right' -- and the system doesn't punish her for lying or leading children to lie, but it does continue to punish the husband.
Or you have people of both sexes (I guess it's three now with transsexuals) told things will be alright if they plead guilty to crimes they didn't commit, it's the best way to not be punished -- surprise! now they're unemployable. At home instead of jail and losing money to an attorney, but still unemployable unless they can find a company who gives second chances.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. The system is a sham.
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(In reply to hwcperfect re Godzilla 2014)
LaLlama: Make me give a *beep* whats going on