Recently, Redditor u/LordofDiacord asked the lawyers of the Reddit community to share the "dumbest" thing that either won or lost them a case, and some of these stories are almost too good to be believable. Here are some of the most bewildering cases:
1."I had a client who was facing a termination of parental rights case who called me the day of the trial to tell me she couldn't make it to court because her current boyfriend had surprised her with tickets to the Caribbean. She actually told me to call her after the trial and let her know how it went. Spoiler alert: it did not go well."
2."I was once prosecuting a misdemeanor simple assault case. The defendant got up, and the first words out of her mouth were, 'Yes, I hit her because she made me mad.' I let her talk for a while, then rested my case."
3."In one of my first public defender cases, I was representing the sweetest, tiny 4'10" lady for a felony criminal destruction of property case. She gave the typical 'it wasn't me' excuses, but as a newbie, I fully believed her. We stood on business, and at the pre-trial conference with the prosecutor, I told him we were taking this one to trial. He laughed; I should have known. On the way out the door, he said to me, 'Oh, I almost forgot, do you want the video? I have it here and can just transfer it to you on a USB and avoid discovery.' While looking at my client, I asked the prosecutor, 'Video?'"
"We watched it together. My client was wearing the same dress she wore to court. We did not go to trial. I got her seven months in county and a downgrade to a misdemeanor. She only did three months because she got an early release when she found out she was pregnant. She was an awesome person who made an emotional mistake, and I truly hope she's doing better. For what it's worth, I never noticed her name in the client pool again — unlike several of my repeat customers."
4."I had a client who was charged with illegally camping on public land (aka being homeless in public). I moved for a dismissal at the first appearance based on a lack of probable cause. The municipal code defined camping as 'sleeping outdoors between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m.' I pointed out that the police citation showed that they ticked my client at 8:30 p.m."
5."I had a client when I was working in the clinic at law school who had stolen pills from a hospital. The DA sent me the security camera footage. It was legit her: she was 10 feet away from the camera, looking around, and shoveling pills into her pocket. I asked my professor how to approach it, and he suggested showing her the video. I did that, and her response was, 'So, do you think I have a case?' She ended up magically finding money for a non-public defender and fired me. She ended up getting a few years in jail."
6."No one noticed that the date stamp on our expert's video of the fire scene did not match the date he said he'd been there investigating."
7."I was a public defender in my first felony trial. It involved meth trafficking, where they had the whole exchange caught on video — including my client's (alleged) face and his license plate, since the exchange took place in his car. When he was arrested the next day, he still had the marked bills in his wallet. All I could argue was reasonable doubt; 'probably' wasn't enough. He was facing 20 years because of his record. After about 10 minutes out, the jury came back and asked if they could see my client's teeth. In the video, he had a bad case of meth mouth, but he had not testified, so the jury never got a chance to look in his mouth in person. The judge apologized and said the proof was closed. The jury came back with a 'not guilty' verdict five minutes later."
"I spoke to the foreman after, and he said that the jury was certain it was him, but his teeth were so distinctive that they wanted to see them to be absolutely certain. I asked, 'What about the license plate and marked bills?' His brow furrowed, and he said, 'That actually didn't come up back there...but, yeah, I guess it was definitely him. Should we tell the judge?' I said, 'Uh, it's too late, it's over.'"
8."A juror told me that my victim didn't sound 'sufficiently scared' on his 911 call."
9."I had a fairly simple assault case trial. A person who was homeless was told to leave by security and was ushered away. The guy got upset and hit the security guard. We had some cellphone footage that showed this, but ultimately, the key moment wasn't clear, and it could have been argued that the security guard had touched him first. The defense counsel asked the defendant a few questions, then went in front of the jury and asked him to basically position her where the security guard was, and reenact what had happened. The defense counsel and the defendant agreed that she should stand an arm's length away and point. She then asked what happened next. My dude looked right at her and slugged her right in the mouth."
"It wasn't a 'gentle' reenactment tap, but it was like he was trying to knock her out. Her lip was bleeding, and she looked shocked, like she was fully unprepared for it. The judge asked me if there was any cross. 'Uh, just briefly. Sir, just to confirm, you hit the security guard just like that?' 'Yes.' 'Up until that time, did the security guard ever touch you?' 'No.' I didn't even get out of the courthouse parking lot before I got called back for the verdict."
10."My client went on trial for sex work. She required a Vietnamese interpreter. When it was time for the cop to ID the defendant, he pointed right at the interpreter. The motion to dismiss was instantly granted."
11."The other party was hiding assets, said they couldn't work, and refused to disclose their address. We had an inkling where they might've been. I looked at Google Street View in a rural area, and a Google car just happened to be taking updated photos at the right time, and showed the other party at the address with the hidden assets and undertaking work. You can't opt out of a digital life."
12."Let's just say that when my client (on the stand) said of the plaintiff, 'I hate that fucking guy,' things definitely took a turn for the worse."
13."It was a class-action data breach case. We were suing a company that had accidentally emailed out thousands of their customers' information to a group of scammers. It was ridiculous negligence and a complete disregard of even the most barebones data protection scheme. They were a bunch of arrogant, rich assholes. Now, due to some procedural weirdness, we had to prove that our class representative specifically had monetary damages as a result of the data breach, which would normally be a huge problem because actual provable damages as a result of a data breach are extremely rare. But we had a class representative who was pretty unusual: he had gotten the boilerplate notice of data breach and had absolutely freaked out about it. He had panic attacks and medical problems and lost his job. So, in a one-in-a-million situation, we had an opportunity to actually hold these people accountable for damaging the whole class of tens of thousands of people."
"The defendants got our rep's employee file in discovery and found that he had been fired for a third strike of missing work. But they wanted to show that he had skipped work for his daughter's school field trip, which had been the cause of his second strike. So, we showed up to a hearing with an elementary school field trip schedule, which allowed us to recover millions of dollars for the class."
14."Once, a client brought a PowerPoint titled, 'Why I'm Innocent' in Comic Sans. Somehow, the jury still bought it. Honestly, I think the font did half the work."
15."While shadowing a lawyer on a pro bono case as part of my studies, I sat down with him and his client before the trial, which was about the client allegedly having dealt drugs to minors. The lawyer told him 10 times: 'When you don't have to answer, don't answer. Do not talk about anything regarding dealing drugs. When not spoken to directly, do not even think about opening your mouth and saying anything.' Ten minutes into the trial, the judge said something about the defendant being accused of dealing drugs, and the client just straight-up said, 'Yes, I did it, but I don't do it anymore.' It was a rather short trial after that."
16."I did a pro bono case to represent some dipshit who had set fire to her balcony by dumping out the ashes from her charcoal grill that she wasn't allowed to have on the balcony in the first place. Her defense was that someone must have walked up on her balcony and set fire to it, and that it was just a coincidence that she had dumped her ashes there. She got mad that we lost and told me she was glad she didn't have to pay me because I was 'incompetent.' Thanks."
17.Lastly: "I was involved in an entirely normal paternity case where a woman had a baby and filed for paternity. The guy disputed it and said he wasn't the father, so the court ordered a standard paternity test. The test result said he wasn't the father of the baby, but surprisingly, it also excluded the mother. After a lot of discussion, we kind of heard off the record that the mother probably 'borrowed' someone else's baby to make a child support claim. Apparently, she didn't understand that when a court orders a DNA test, they usually test the mother against the baby as well."
Well, I have a headache now. If you're a lawyer, what was the dumbest or wildest thing that either made you win or lose a trial? Let us know in the comments, or you can anonymously submit your story using the form below.
Note: Some stories have been edited for length and/or clarity.
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