Chewbacca defense

In ajury trial,theChewbacca defenseis a legal strategy in which acriminal defense lawyertries to confuse the jury rather than refute the case of theprosecutor.It is an intentionaldistractionorobfuscation.As a Chewbacca defense distracts and misleads, it is an example of ared herring.It is also an example of anirrelevant conclusion,a type ofinformal fallacyin which one making an argument fails to address the issue in question.Often an opposing counsel can legallyobjectto such arguments by declaring them irrelevant,character evidence,or argumentative.

Johnnie Cochranuses the Chewbacca defense againstChefin theSouth Parkepisode "Chef Aid".

The name "Chewbacca defense" comes from "Chef Aid",an episode of the American animated seriesSouth Park.The episode, which premiered on October 7, 1998, satirizes theO. J. Simpson murder trial,particularly attorneyJohnnie Cochran'sclosing argumentfor the defense. In the episode, a fictionalized version of Cochran bases his argument on afalse premiseabout the 1983 filmReturn of the Jedi.He asks the jury why aWookieelikeChewbaccawould want to live onEndorwith the much smallerEwokswhen "it does not make sense". He argues that if Chewbacca living on Endor does not make sense—and if even mentioning Chewbacca in the case does not make sense—then the jury must acquit.

Origin

In the episode, the character of Chef contacts a "major record company" executive, seeking to have his name credited as the composer of a fictionalAlanis Morissettehit called "Stinky Britches". Chef's claim is substantiated by a 20‑year-old recording of Chef performing the song. The record company refuses and hires Johnnie Cochran, who files a lawsuit against Chef for harassment. In court, Cochran resorts to his "famous" Chewbacca defense, which he "used during the Simpson trial", according to Chef's lawyer,Gerald Broflovski.Although Broflovski uses logic, reasoning, and the fact that Chef properly copyrighted his work, Cochran counters with the following:

Cochran

I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen,thisis Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbaccaliveson the planet Endor. Now think about it;that does not make sense!

Gerald Broflovski

Damn it!... He's using the Chewbacca defense!

Cochran

Why would a Wookiee, an 8-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of 2-foot-tall Ewoks? That doesnot make sense!But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! Itdoes not make sense!Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it doesnot make sense!If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.

This statement is a parody of Cochran's closing arguments in theO. J. Simpson murder case,where he said to the jury, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit", in reference to a courtroom demonstration in which Simpson appeared unable to fit a pair of bloodyleather glovesfound at the murder scene over themedical gloveshe was wearing.

In a June 28, 1995 memo to Cochran,Gerald Uelmencame up with (and Cochran later repeated) a quip he used in his closing arguments, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." In his memo to Cochran, Uelmen noted that the phrase not only applied to the gloves, but to the evidence presented by the prosecutors:

What the memo really tries to do is play off the jury instructions... I thought that instruction on circumstantial evidence [CALJIC 2.01] was just incredibly good for us, so when we knew that instruction was going to be given, it just popped out at me. It says if it doesn't fit, you must acquit. What I was trying to do is not just remind the jury of that moment in the trial of trying on the glove, but the whole concept of did the evidence really fit the story that the prosecution was trying to present.

In the episode, Cochran's defense is successful. The jury finds Chef guilty of "harassing a major record label", after which the judge sets his punishment as either a $2 million fine to be paid within 24 hours or, failing that, four years in prison (the judge initially sentences him to eight million years before being corrected by a court officer). Ultimately, a "Chef Aid" benefit concert is organized to raise money for Chef to hire Cochran for his own lawsuit against the record company. At the concert, Cochran has a change of heart and offers to represent Chefpro bono.He again successfully uses the Chewbacca defense, this time to defeat the record company and force them to acknowledge Chef's authorship of their song. In the second use of the Chewbacca defense, he ends by taking out a monkey puppet and shouting, "Here, look at the monkey. Look at the silly monkey!" causing a juror's head to explode.

Use

TheAssociated Pressobituary for Cochran mentioned the Chewbacca defense parody as one of the ways in which the attorney had enteredpop culture.Criminologist Thomas O'Connor says that when DNA evidence shows "inclusion", that is, does not exonerate a client by exclusion from the DNA sample provided, "About the only thing you can do is attack the lab for its (lack of) quality assurance and proficiency testing, or use a 'Chewbacca defense'… and try to razzle-dazzle the jury about how complex and complicated the other side's evidence or probability estimates are."Forensic scientist Erin Kenneally has argued that court challenges todigital evidencefrequently use the Chewbacca defense by presenting multiple alternative explanations of forensic evidence obtained from computers and Internet providers to confuse the jury intoreasonable doubt.Kenneally also provides methods that can be used to rebut a Chewbacca defense.Kenneally and colleague Anjali Swienton have presented this topic before theFloridaState Court System and at the 2005American Academy of Forensic Sciencesannual meeting.

The term has seen use in political commentary.Ellis Weinerwrote inThe Huffington Postin January 2007 that right-wing commentatorDinesh D'Souzawas using the Chewbacca defense in criticism of then newSpeaker of the HouseNancy Pelosi,defining it as when "someone asserts his claim by saying something so patently nonsensical that the listener's brain shuts down completely".Jay Heinrichs' bookThank You for Arguingstates that the term "Chewbacca defense" is "sneaking into the lexicon" as another name for thered herringfallacy.The term was used byPaul Krugman,who wrote inThe New York TimesthatJohn Tayloruses the Chewbacca defense as a seemingly last option for defending his hawkish monetary policy position, after years of publicly stating that "quantitative easingwould lead to a major acceleration ofinflation."

Analysis by lawyers

Lawyer Josh Gilliland states in his blog, "A judge likely would say, 'I have a bad feeling about this' and possibly declare a mistrial if such an argument was made in court." Gilliland continued, "A party successfully using the Chewbacca Defense to confuse the jury into engaging injury nullificationin a civil lawsuit runs the risk of the losing party winning on ajudgment notwithstanding the verdict(JNOV). In Chef's case, the copyright violation should have entitled him to a judgment as a matter of law. "LawyerDevin Stoneoutlined all the things that he stated would never happen in a real case, giving the episode a "C-" for legal accuracy.

See also

• Affluenza defense– Socio-psychological effects of consumerism
• Dead cat strategy– Introduction of a distracting topic
• King Kong defense– Copyright infringement trial of torrent tracker
• Matrixdefense– Belief that crime took place in a simulation
• Shaggy defense– Denial with the defense "it wasn't me"
• Twinkie defense– Mocking term for improbable legal defense
• Gish gallop– Rapid-fire argument rhetorical technique

Further reading

• Arp, Robert(2006). "The Chewbacca Defense: A South Park Logic Lesson".South Park and Philosophy: You Know, I Learned Something Today.Malden, MA:Blackwell Publishing.ISBN978-1-4051-6160-2.
• Browning, John G. (2014). "A Long Time Ago, in A Courtroom Far, Far Away There's No Denying That the Force Is All Around Us-Even Judges Refer to George Lucas's Pop Culture Science Fiction Saga",77Texas Bar Journal158, 161

External links

• The defense in the show itself:"The Chewbacca Defense is Used in Court".YouTube.South Park Studios-Comedy Central.October 7, 1998.