Need some knowledge in LAWS because this report is for Legal Aspects of Hospitality Management class

1. Watch the movie My Cousin Vinny (1992) and pay attention to the courtroom procedures.
2. Prepare a report addressing the questions and issues addressed below. Some of the questions can be answered in a word or two, but others may require a paragraph or two.

Link to the movie: https://fsharetv.com/movie/my-cousin-vinny-episode-1-tt0104952

Please answer the questions in a,b,c,d format.

a. Lawyers are licensed on a state by state basis. Vinny successfully passed the New York bar examination after 6 attempts. How and why was he allowed to try a case in Alabama?

b. Vinny talked to his girlfriend Mona Lisa regarding the case who as it turns out later is of considerable assistance. Should Vinny been talking to her about the case? Why or why not?

c. At the beginning of the movie the two college students, Bill and Stan are interviewed by the police during which there is a confession to an unintentional shopping lifting which confession is construed as a confession to the murder of the shopkeeper of the convenience store, Sac-O-Suds. Was the interrogation proper? What if anything should have occurred prior or ancillary to any interrogation? Should the confession be admissible in court? Why or why not? If Vinny knew what he was doing what procedurally should he, Vinny have done if he thought the procurement of confession was improper. What is the terminology associated with what Vinney might have done?

d. The location of the trial was in a small rural county in Alabama. Should the trial have been there, and if not what should have Vinny have done?

e. Before the trial begins, Vinny thinks he is cleaver by getting the District Attorney, Jim Trotter III to give Vinny information the District Attorney had amassed about the case. This information is referred to what in the movie, and how does this exchange differ from the mandatory exchange of information we learned about in class regarding a civil case which this movie was not. It is a criminal case.

f. In the movie the jury was seated. What, if anything, should have preceded the seating of the jury?

g. Vinny found himself spending a night or two in jail. Why, and by what authority?

h. Before the actual trial there was a hearing during which Vinny asked no questions of the witnesses that testified. What was that hearing called? What legal purpose, if any, did it have?

i. At the hearing referenced in subparagraph (g), both defendants, Bill and Stan were upset because Vinny did not ask any questions? Was Vinny required to ask any such questions? Why or why not?

j. When the trial started the District Attorney called three witnesses. When asking questions what type of questions would have been objectionable had the District Attorney asked them? In answering consider not the facts being sought, but by the manner in which the information is sought.

k. When Vinny was allowed to ask questions he was conducting what type of examination? Given this type of questioning what could Vinny do that the District Attorney could not?

l. When Vinney asked his question of the first 3 witnesses what was he trying to establish in the mind of the jury?

m. On the third day of trial, the District Attorney produced an FBI analyst George Wilbur who Vinny know nothing about. Vinny objected and the objection was overruled. Was that proper? If so why? If not why not?

n. Vinny’s girlfriend Mona Lisa is called as a witness although she had no personal knowledge of any of the events of the crime. Why was she allowed to testify?

o. When Mona Lisa is called as witnessed the District Attorney objects and wants to ask her questions before Vinny does. What is this questioning called? What is the questioning designed to ascertain?

p. After the testimony of Mona Lisa the case ends by the District Attorney dismissing the charges. Can a District Attorney do that? Is so be what authority?