The 7 worst legal defenses ever attempted

Since we crank out so many stories each week some really good ones get lost in the cracks. And since so many new people visit Guyism every day (thank you), we thought we’d start taking some time on the weekends to share some classics that many of our newer readers may have missed.

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America’s legal system makes America’s Top Model look like a home of higher learning. Lawyers are beating the hell out of the old alchemists: never mind lead, they’ve found a way to turn stupidity into gold by suing the world and everything in it for failing to bubble-wrap anything more lethal than a marshmallow. Judges just aren’t allowed to say “take this idiot out back and beat him,” which is why the following defenses truly didn’t get justice.

7 Fake Heart Attack

Keison Wilkins is what happens when you build a law school next to nuclear waste dump, then fire the illiterate janitor for drinking bleach, then that janitor gets drunk and impregnates a possum. Mr. Wilkins incredible defense during his 2008 shooting trial was based heavily on playing dead. Presumably thinking that if he didn’t move, the due process would lose interest and return to its cubs.

Anyone eager to enjoy Point Break again should watch the above video, thereby freeing Keanu Reeves from the position of “worst actor ever.” The court confirmed Keison was faking it by using smelling salts (he jerked up like an electrocuted jack in the box, before attempting to return to his nap), having trained medics on hand, and not being goddamned idiots. But Keison was committed to the least convincing portrayal of unconsciousness that doesn’t actually involve dancing ever, and kept on napping through the rest of the trial – and is now committed to a 42 year sentence.

6 “When women become hysterical, it is necessary sometimes to slap them to bring them around.”

That’s the absolute worst thing you can say in a court room short of “I’m wired to explode” or “Ze Reich Vill Last Vun Sousand Years!” In fact it’s one of the worst things you can say period. You couldn’t guarantee a conviction more if you bribed the jury – in fact, since that could force a retrial this is actually more effective. Especially when it’s said by the a man who is to equal rights what the internet is to punctuation.

A real catch: Louis here pictured NOT sexually assaulting someone while drunk

Louis Palmer claimed that his victim agreed to a quick “fumble” with him late at night, so it’s nice to know that even in his sex fantasies he knows he sucks. She said he stalked her, pushed her against a wall, sexually-and-then-actually-assaulted her. That’s when he won the Nobel Prize for Fifties Sexism, announcing that sometimes women needed a bit of physical violence to settle their unbalanced feminine vapors, but was immediately slapped down by Mr. Security Camera. Oh, did we mention this was all on his stag night before getting married?

Even after all this his fiancee married him, so we’d advise the police to check his possessions for the antidote and give it to her. There’s no love that strong. Remember, this man’s best-case defense was announcing in public “Listen, I just wanted to cheat on my wife in a filthy alley just before our wedding, okay?” At least now she has seven years to realise life without him might be better.

5 Master of Defense

In the worst defense since the Detroit Lions decided “We’re just going to hand the other team the ball,” Michael Sampson managed to upgrade “driving with a suspended license and littering” to five felony charges in twenty seconds. That’s almost a kilofelony per hour!

This is about as innocent as Mr. Sampson ever looks

In some insane attempt to become the stupidest mime in history, during his trial he pointed at a testifying police officer, the state prosecutor, and the judge and made throat-slashing gestures. He also pointed at another police officer present (presumably for extra points) and mimed shooting someone (artistic bonus). Unless there’s a fantastic cash prize for dumbest possible silent actions that hasn’t already been won by Charlie Chaplin we may never understand what he was at.

4 Swearing and Sexual Assault

That’s not the crime, that was the defense – and considering the case was actually about a dangerous dog we’re well past “porno that just happens to be in a courtroom” and dangerously close to “creepy fetish porno in the same courtroom.” District judge Esther Cunningham was acting as solicitor to her friend, and as storage-unit for a bottle of brandy, when she forcibly kissed the prosecuting solicitor – in what may have been a misjudged attempt at reaching a settlement – before swearing at pretty much everyone in earshot (including the judge) and getting ejected from the court.

3 Double-Rapist-Murderer “Too Fat” to Die

We’re not saying that some defense lawyers are soulless decay personified bent on throwing as many wrenches as possible into the working of a sane society by freeing murderers for money. In the case of Richard Cooey we don’t have to. He raped, tortured and killed two college students in 1986 and last year – in proof that Satan is a lawyer and finds this all extremely funny – his legal team argued he was too fat to die. They argued that the cruel way we keep convicted and unrepentant double-killers in cells led to his weight gain (although it didn’t prevent him from trying to escape over a fence in 2005). Presumably the judge pointed out that if Richard wanted to stay in shape, he should have chosen an exercise scheme which didn’t involve double murder.

Cooey’s blood being made entirely of gravy didn’t make him an ideal candidate for lethal injection.

They also argued that his medication might react badly to the lethal injection drugs, at which point we have to ask “How much worse can they react?” Unless there’s a real chance of accidentally creating a morbidly obese murderer with superpowers we don’t see the problem. Luckily, the world is now exactly one lack-of-Richard Cooey better off.

2 Hijacking is Illegal?

Lawyer George Thomas said that his client should not be found guilty because he didn’t understand that forcing his way onto an airplane, firing a gun into the ceiling and taking everyone on board hostage was illegal. If he said that with a straight face then screw legal work, somebody get George into acting immediately – every second spent trying to keep crazed killers on the streets is another Academy Award he’s missing. Either that or it’s time to examine when someone stops “being an attorney” and starts being “aiding and abetting.”

It is literally impossible to do anything more illegal without killing someone. Since 2001 airports have become a Mega City One except the people with the power to restrain and probe you aren’t Judge Dredd – they’re not even Judge Judy. Nailclippers are now a class one hazard, so if someone seriously says that an actual gun didn’t set off their personal “maybe this isn’t a great idea sensors”, we need to lock them up before check if knives are on the “things babies can eat” list.

1 I don’t remember firing my shotgun at police and if I did, it was an accident

Michael Boyd is so bad at defense he should be deployed in enemy countries to make invasion easier. How much legal trouble you’re in can usually be worked out by where the “arguing line” is – are you arguing that you weren’t even there, or that you didn’t mean to kill the dirty punk? Michael’s line is at “I picked up the loaded sawed-off shotgun while surrounded by armed police, but I don’t remember firing it,” and just so you know, that gun was totally fired. At the police officers. Unless Casper exists and is significantly more anti-establishment than previously suspected Michael’s full of shit.

Police would have been wise to bend Boyd’s shotgun into a bow, causing it to fire back in Boyd’s face.

During his trial, he further admitted…
- He meant to get into an armed standoff with police, but only to teach his girlfriend a lesson.
- Said lesson being: she can’t go running to the police every time he hits her.
- He argues that he didn’t “punch” her face, only “pushed” her face (PROTIP: when you’re arguing the choice of verb used to describe your hand interfacing with your girlfriend’s face, you’re the worst person ever).
- That shootout he started on purpose? His kids were in the house.

To recap, for those whose brains have trouble interpreting this level of idiocy: he fully admits triggering an armed confrontation with police while his kids were in the house after beating his girlfriend, further describes how he picked up a loaded gun, but argues that he didn’t meant to fire it. In the most insane innocence acclamation since “I’m just holding this guys blood on my shirt to keep it warm,” he explained that he can’t have started firing because he knew he didn’t have enough shells to kill all the cops. So can they please let him go?

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