Analysis Of My Cousin Vinny

My Cousin Vinny is a classic comedy movie involving mostly underrated actors, but somewhat more surprising is the accuracy of which it depicts the court proceedings. The movie portrays all of the significant aspects of an actual criminal trial, however it leaves out less “entertaining” portions of the court process. This being said, I would recommend this movie to anyone who does not have a basic knowledge of courtroom proceedings, as it hits on all of the major aspects of a trial in an exciting and comical manner, keeping the viewer entertained throughout the entire film, which one would not receive from any other piece. As is used throughout the United States, we see the use of the adversary system during the movie. According to Miller,

In the movie, Billy and Stan believe they are being questioned for shoplifting, however the sheriff has them in custody for the murder of the gas station attendant. In reality, the sheriff did not see the crime being committed, so he should have waited for a warrant from a judge in order to bring them in, and he should have told them immediately the crime he thought they committed. This being the case, the preliminary hearing is overlooked. If it were to be included, the movie would not exist, or it would be about two hours shorter, due to the fact that the main purpose of this step is “to make sure the police have not arrested the wrong person” (2015). This is normally held after the arrest, but as we know is left out, in order to prolong the movie. We then move to the arraignment, which in the movie, Vinny has a rough time getting to the main point of this step. The main point of this step is simply to decide if the defendant is going to plead “guilty” or not “not guilty”. Bail is also determined at this step. According to Miller “Bail is money a defendant has to provide to guarantee his or her attendance at trial” (2015). Since the boys cannot afford the large amount of bail set upon them by the Judge, they are forced to wait in jail until their trial

What the Grand Jury does is rather simple, but a very necessary feature of the American court process. The purpose of the Grand Jury is “to determine whether there is enough evidence for the case to proceed to trial” (Miller, 2015). It makes perfect sense as to why the director of the film did not include this process, due to the fact that during the Grand Jury process, all of the evidence against the defendants gets presented to the judge (Miller, 2015). If the director were to present this as a scene in the movie, there would be no surprise as to what the prosecutor would produce as evidence, which for the film, would make it less suspenseful. This leads us into the next step, and that is the Discovery Process. In the movie, Vinny believes that he seduced Jim Trotter to give him his files on the case. Vinny was surprised at how easily he received the documents,until his fiancé (Mona Lisa Vito) tells him that the prosecutor had to share them with him, and this is part of the discovery process. The prosecution is legally bound to share its information with the defense. Now that we have discussed the pretrial occurrences, we get into the trial portion of the court process. This is the portion of the process in which both the defense and the prosecution present their cases to the jury, the judge, and the rest of the courtroom. To select a jury, the bring in potential jurors and ask them questions,