When watching movies involving complicated judicial trials with complex lawyer client relations and heated debates between defendant versus plaintiff groups, it is often the case that one just assumes that a lawyer will try to “win” the trial on behalf of their client. But what if the client unremorsefully commits a crime in response to an injustice done to their loved ones? This grey area can understandably make representing clients a much more ethically and morally difficult task: to what extent should a lawyer take their client’s version of the story as the only truth, and how do you use this “truth” to successfully defend the client, especially if the client has committed a crime. Judge Scott Miller gave interesting examples of challenging cases he encountered in which he had to reconcile what would be the lawful versus ethical thing do to. After discussing the Attorney’s code of ethics, it became very clear to understand that what is lawful versus ethical can become very difficult to determine, especially since it is often very difficult to completely separate one’s opinions and values when making such calls, as was shown by the interesting debates/discussions this brought up in the group. Regardless, this watching this movie with Judge Scott Miller was an incredible opportunity to delve into the judicial world with an expert to guide us through.

Did a lawyer commit perjury? Judge Scott is here to let us question that, and to provide some insight that he’s encountered. The films premise is that a lawyer is given a case with a man shooting the man who raped his wife. He himself knows he shot the man and feels no remorse over this. For the lawyer, what should he do? Your defendant feels no regret and may just admit to the crime in court. Its the defendant’s lawyer’s role to absolve him of his crimes. His approach comes close to perjury, but I believe that he doesn’t. Maybe scummy, but legal.

Judge Scott’s experience covers one of his first cases. Amazingly funny, with details hidden, and a difficult case. His defendant admits to the crime privately, but later on claims otherwise. Too comedic! Even after that, he gets his not-guilty verdict! Nice!

So as someone who wants to be a future lawyer I always enjoy the movies with Judge Scott Miller. This movie was all about the idea of how much control do lawyers have when it comes to what their clients defense is. Do lawyers manipulate their clients so that they have a better chance of winning the case. I think that this is funny because people often think that this is what all lawyers do based on movies and television shoes. People think of lawyers as sneaky but they have a code against these forms of manipulation. But in addition it is not always the lawyer sometimes the client knows the lawyers job and tries to manipulate it so that they get less time or better treatment. Lawyers are good people but they are always seen as people who do not care whether you are guilty or not but someone worried about winning. Lawyers have a code and they make sure to follow it.

For this Friday film with Judge Scott Miller, we watched a portion of a famous film about a murder trial. This brought up the issue of ethics and the law. I thought it was interesting to hear what everyone had to say about the case, and about whether or not it is ok to skew the truth a little bit. Judge Scott Miller told us about some cases he personally dealt with where he was the attorney. Sometimes it can cause cognizant dissonance for lawyers, when they have to defend a client that may not be disclosing the full truth. Should the client’s words be taken as the truth? Lawyers must use their judgment along with sure facts, in order to make decisions like this. We went over a small portion of the Attorney’s code of ethics in order to help tackle the issues at hand. Some of us had differing opinions, but it was a great conversation to have. We were lucky to have Judge Miller’s lawful insight while viewing the film!

This was by far my favorite Rose Scholars event. During the event we watched part of a classic detective movie. In particular, we watched a scene in which a lawyer potentially convinced a client to alter his story. Although the lawyer did not explicitly persuade his client to do so, his actions and body language implied he was. We discussed the controversy with Judge Scott Miller who graduated from Cornell Law School. He asked us if we thought the scene displayed a breach of the law.

Multiple peers explained that it did not because the maneuver was not explicit. While I understand that the move was not explicit, I believe it did breach the lawyer’s code of conduct. While watching the film, the lawyer’s body language and dialogue suggested that his client should change his story to make the case more reasonable. This means had the lawyer not pursued these moves, the client may have presented the judge with a different story. I, thus, believe that these actions tainted the pure truth from being presented in court and could have meaningfully affected the outcome of the trial.

Judge Scott Miller also described his past experiences throughout his career dealing with cases in which he had to question his ethics and make decisions that tested them. In particular, he mentioned one of his clients completely changed her story when he was working with her. He had to believe her new story despite the stark difference between her new story and her old one. Judge Miller also explained that his job was particularly difficult when clients did not reveal the entire truth behind their cases. Sometimes he or other lawyers found out information that he was unaware of about his clients. This prevented him from being able to fully represent his clients.

Listening to Scott Miller’s stories and learning about the trial of personal ethics experienced throughout a lawyer’s career was truly intriguing. I really enjoyed learning about how Judge Miller dealt with these cases and his take on the movie. I would like to take at least one law-based course at Cornell after this Rose Scholars event. This was my favorite Rose Scholars event because it provided a multi-dimensional experience involving discussion, film, interesting questions, and real experiences.

After the event, I reflected on my personal ethics and questioned my thoughts on the actions of characters in the films I watched. From this event I not only learned about Judge Scott Miller’s background, but I also learned to pay attention to the decisions that people and characters make in reality and in film and to compare them with decisions I would make under my own values. This will help me better understand and further develop my values in the future and learn more about how lawyers think.

For this week’s Flora Rose Film, we only watched a short segment of a movie about a murder trial. Rather than watch this entirely of the film, Judge Miller gave a brief explanation of a portion of the legal code lawyers are required to follow, then asked us if we felt the film’s lawyer character did or did not uphold such standards. Namely, we were asked whether it was incorrect for the film’s lawyer character to clearly lay out the three potential defenses a lawyer can argue in the case of murder. From this discussion question, we were able to engage in further discussion about the role of lawyers. Knowing very little about the legal profession, I found this discussion to be incredibly interesting. I was particularly struck by Judge MIller’s statement that it is no way the lawyer’s job to determine if their client is guilty or innocent. While in many ways this is obvious, it introduces a very interesting psychological aspect to these cases, as lawyers need to be able to separate their personal opinions/morals from their legal duty. For this reason, I can understand why Judge Miller felt so drawn to practicing law in a smaller town, dealing with individuals rather than large, corporate clients. He presented two particularly interesting stories from his own career that each dealt with the issue of clients controlling how much information they share with their counsel as a form of self-protection. This talk definitely shifted my understanding of the legal profession, which I previously viewed as much more transactional and black-and-white. Instead, the field is mired in truly fascinating psychological and moral strategy that sounds both rewarding and frustrating.

Judge Scott Miller has made an enormous contribution to the well-being of the society and the country as well. For years he has been involved in investigating criminal cases. He has a huge responsibility in front of the people since his actions could determine how the lives of certain individuals shape out. What fascinated me the most was the cases that were on murder.

The specifics of what lawyers and clients should and shouldn’t tell each other is yet another aspect of everyday life that I had never considered before. It makes sense that there are specific rules about it but in the media that aspect is usually not portrayed and it was really fascinating to hear Judge Miller’s take. He’s a very enthusiastic and light hearted speaker. It was also nice that we just got to watch the beginning and then got to hear some interesting stories from his time as a lawyer.

I don’t really remember the name of the film we watched, but it was a very small part of the whole thing. I always enjoy events with Judge Miller because he is so open about his own practice. Whether it be how he chose to pursue law or how he has gotten to where he is now, it’s nice to see the culmination of someone’s hard work. And it was great because he let us go early to study for finals; it was the last film of the semester, and I had a paper due. So I really appreciated that he did not expect us to watch the whole three hour movie. He also always makes his talks very interactive; it lets me learn not only his perspective, but my peers’ perspectives as well. This is great because often times I do not have my own opinions about the law.

The last Friday Film with Judge Miller was really interesting, because we stopped part way of the film in order to discuss whether or not the lawyer was manipulating the defendant to say that he was guilty of a crime.  I thought that this discussion was interesting as it demonstrated the power of framing- the ability to change people’s mind of whether they have committed the crime or not just by how the lawyer is able to frame their options. In that regard, this discussion shed light on the challenges lawyers face, because if they do not adapt to their audience of defendants in a specific manner, the defendants will not give them the response they need to win the case. Although lawyers have a duty to always support the righteousness, the film shed light on the flimsy boundary between right and wrong actions, which can make it challenging for lawyers to decide what to do in these types of situations. Lawyers do want to win cases, however if they change how the data is presented to fit a certain frame, are they going against their duties? The film also shed light on the challenges with personal morality and duty: If criminal lawyers want to win, they must set their own feelings aside. However, to what degree should personal morals guide people or must lawyers just completely forget about their morals when dealing with these types of cases? In that regard, it may seem that lawyers have to live in complete contradiction of themselves  as times. Judge Miller also mentioned the challenges when defendants lie about their circumstances. It would be interesting to evaluate if there is a playbook on how to tell if defendants are lying so that lawyers would not have to waste their energy. Or in some cases do lawyers not care whether their defendants lie since lawyers may want to spin a story that they can tell best?  This discussion was intriguing on getting to understand the complex decision making that defense lawyers must make on a daily basis.