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“Your honor, I plead the Fifth. If I start talking, I might say something incredibly stupid that my lawyer won’t like.”

Many countries around the world grant suspects the “right to remain silent” when they’ve been accused of a crime. And sometimes, keeping your mouth shut is the smartest move you can make.

Lawyers on Reddit have recently been sharing stories of the wildest things their clients have done in courtrooms. From making facepalm-worthy mistakes that ruined cases to getting themselves convicted of entirely new crimes, we’ve gathered their juiciest stories below. So enjoy reading through, and be sure to upvote the tales you wish you could have witnessed from the jury box!

Click here & follow us for more lists, facts, and stories.

#1

IANAL, but I used to review disability claims so I often worked with clients who had lawyers.

A man whose attorney had instructed him to not speak with us directly (a very smart, very basic recommendation) called me up to rant, angrily, that his lawyer was wrong. He COULD shop for groceries and mow the lawn and do all sorts of house work JUST FINE, thank you.

Now I had seen this man’s medical records. There’s no way he was doing all of this without difficulty. So I probed a little further. He could shop for groceries… as long as he used a mobility scooter and had his wife carry things in the house. He could mow the lawn… if he used a riding mower and took a lengthy break every 10 minutes or so. He could do house work… which was limited to wiping down counters and folding (but not carrying) laundry. I called his attorney and gave them a quick update as soon as he and I hung up.

I approved his claim, but that man is so [darn] lucky he got someone who was willing to take an extra 15 minutes with him.

#2

Not my client but the petitioner attorney’s client. The man claimed Workers’ Compensation and threw the kitchen sink at us, meaning, he basically listed just over half of his body parts on the claim petition stating that he injured each one. He was full of s**t and my firm knew it. Anyways, we were going to trial and the day before we ran one more social media search. This absolute f*****g moron posted a video of him winning a break dance competition that was only a few months after the alleged work incident. Never saw a quicker dismissal in my life.

#3

With the utmost certainty in his voice, he yelled at the arresting officer that “It’s not domestic violence; I’m on public property!”

You could tell from his face he really thought he had the cop over a barrel on this one but….

#4

I had a case where a guy was charged for running a red light. The thing is, he had been sitting at the lights for five minutes, and it hadn’t changed. The wording of the specific section under which he was charged related to stop signs and traffic lights and referred to them as ‘traffic regulation devices.’ I successfully argued that as the traffic light wasn’t changing, it wasn’t regulating traffic, and he got off. I couldn’t believe it when the judge ruled in my favour, neither could the police prosecutor!

#5

I was defending a client who was accused of trademark infringement. Thought he knew better than the IP Attorney assigned to his case (me) and so went on his company’s website to “defend” himself by basically confessing to what he did and claiming it wasn’t against the law and the trademark owner was a “woke baby” who needed to either “learn the law” or “get back in the kitchen and make her husband a sandwich” ( i wish i could say i was joking). I was one email away from negotiating a settlement that would have allowed the continued use of the complainants mark with limited restrictions and a very nominal fee. Little to say, she saw his website, told us to go [darn] ourselves, and dragged it before a judge. My client lost…big. His lack of self-control cost him thousands of dollars.

#6

I’m in a Zoom mediation. The mediator gave a long speech, saying that no one else was supposed to be on the call other than the parties. My client is sitting in the passenger seat of his car. I knew his GF was in the car, on the driver’s side, and I texted him and told him she couldn’t be there. He sends me a text that she’s not there. A good 90 minutes into the mediation his car starts driving on the freeway. The mediator tells him he can’t be driving [while] on the phone and to pull over. Mind you, he’s still in the passenger seat.
Finally opposing counsel says, ‘Is he in England or in the passenger seat?’ The mediator asked my client if he was driving or [if] someone else [was]. He tells her he [is] driving and he’s in the driver’s seat. The mediator tells him to move the camera to his left.

The client proceeds to throw the phone on the ground. You hear nothing but people moving around and he says, ‘Get down in the back.’ He then picks up the phone and is clearly now in another seat, the driver’s seat and he proves he’s in the driver’s seat.

Needless to say, mediation was canceled and he got charged attorney fees. In the same mediation, he thought he was in a breakout room with just me and called the mediator a ‘f*****g b***h

#7

A year out of law school, I once had a potential client who wanted me to sue Canada. Apparently, he could not get into the country due to his felony record. I tried to reason with him that it was up to the sovereign nation to set its own rules regarding entry to the country, but he insisted that we could make a lot of money suing Canada. I didn’t take the case but I told him I might be able to get him a letter that said ‘sorry’ from Canada.

#8

Around 1990 there was a guy on trial for armed robbery. He pled not guilty. A witness on the stand identified the defendant. The defendant jumped to his feet and roared, “I should have blown your head off when I had the chance…..” pause, thinks, adds, “if I had been the one who robbed you…”.

#9

Guy got a divorce in secret by telling the court his wife had left the country when she basically lived down the street. When she discovered this and appealed the divorce, the judge took his side for some reason and had no problem with his lying. I was in complete shock. When I pointed out to the judge that this was legally problematic, his exact words to me were ‘I don’t care what the law says.’ Ugh, I just checked. He’s still somehow a judge

#10

Anyone see the video of a guy doing an online court hearing for driving without a license, he answers the call while he’s driving. Without a license.

#11

It was a credit card fraud case in the early part of my career. He actually wore the stolen clothes to court and a clerk at the defrauded store identified them in front of the jury. I felt like the guy in the commercial that asks “want to be somewhere else?”.

#12

Not me, but a colleague. A wealthy client’s son got picked up for d**g dealing at a local music festival. The client bailed him out, and then had his whole fancy law firm defend his son.

The son shambled into the courtroom s****d off his a*s, and loudly attempted to buy d***s off the bailiff.

There wasn’t a lot the lawyers could do after that.

#13

NAL – my dad’s psychotic ex-girlfriend was trying to press bogus charges on my dad, in general trying to ruin his life and career. And his family – she attempted to make some things up about me, too. Had to go through interviews, detective’s office talks, APS visits. My dad and I filed protective orders. Her response to the POs, and I was afraid it would happen, was to vandalize a part of his property in a very gross and obscene way. She also went back to the detective to make another claim on me, saying I stole *her non-prescribed d***s*, so basically admitting she had illegal d***s. So she got a bit more than just protective orders against her; she had jail time, now, too. Good riddance!

#14

Not a lawyer, but I am a former police officer and spent a lot of time in courtrooms.

One guy was on trial for a DUI, and he wanted the judge to know that the cop who arrested him was “just some punk kid”. He insisted that he’d only had two bottles of wine and his lawyer keeps trying to get him to stop his stream of verbal diarrhea and he just keeps going

Eventually the judge says “I think you should take a moment to confer with your attorney” and the guy says “Don’t interrupt me, I’m not a child!”

Judge smiled and leaned back and said “by all means, please continue”. dudes attorney just looked like he was deflating.

#15

Law student working at law firm. We have a fax machine that gets tons of spam faxes.
Our chief partner has a vendetta against spam, and he uses it to give us practice in researching and writing petitions. So we catalog each fax, send replies to take us off the list, document everything, and wait for them to fax us again. Then we follow up with a FCC complaint and demand letter. A couple of times, this has ended up with the person getting mad and sending us retaliatory faxes (black sheets of paper).

If they stop sending we don’t do anything, but we’ve gone to small claims a couple of times, and gotten $500 per page a couple of times.

We also got someone trying to sell d***s through fax, but we just turned that over to the police.

#16

I was on a jury where the defendant showed up in court day 1 wearing the same exact outfit as the “unknown suspect” in the video of the crime. It took only a few seconds before the judge immediately called a stoppage. All lawyers went into the back with the judge and they came out like 7 minutes later as announced the defendant had taken the plea deal. Wild.

#17

Client was being sued and didn’t like the opposing counsel or the judge so he left the court a bunch of voicemails so profane that he was subject to a criminal contempt of court hearing.

#18

Not a lawyer, heard this story from a guy I used to work with. His brother in law got injured at work and was suing for a hefty sum. Case was pretty much open and shut, all the evidence was in the BIL’s favor… Until the BIL started talking. They ask him to tell them about the day of the accident. BIL started out fine until he gets to the where he approached the piece of equipment that injured him. He tell everyone that there was a note on it stating that it was out of order. BIL then says that he discarded the note and started up the piece of malfunctioning equipment as he had a job to get done…

That easy win was discarded faster than that out of order sign.

#19

NAL, but my uncle used to be a prison manager at the local prison in the area of NZ where I grew up. They had ‘court’ hearings when the prisoners had done something against the rules etc, they’d go before a couple of the prison workers and explain, kinda like an internal hearing I guess. Uncle was the ‘judge’ for a lot of these.

One dude had been found with a cellphone. Denied up and down that it was his, didn’t know where it came from, blah blah blah. Uncle asked him several times if he wanted to own up, guy absolutely INSISTED it wasn’t his.

Uncle “well, someone’s wasted a hundred bucks on a phone then”

Prisoner “[darn] off, I paid $600 for that!”

Uncle “………….”

hahahahhaa miss his work stories.

#20

Not a lawyer, but I was in a courtroom watching injunctions (restraining orders) play out.

One case the woman was there, but the man was in prison so he was calling in. After deciding on an agreement, the guy asked if he could make a statement. At the end of his statement, he said “and tell {the woman} to go [darn] herself.”

He got an additional 6 months of prison. The guy asked to make another statement after getting a tongue lashing from the judge.

And he did it again – telling her to go [darn] herself. And got another 6 months.

Imagine losing a year of your life because you couldn’t shut up for 5 minutes.

#21

I had an instructor who was a prosecutor. He called a witness who had seen the whole thing, and had an interest in seeing the defendent punished. Slam dunk case.

She thought she was on TV. She overacted EVERY WORD. Completely embellished the retelling of the events. Didn’t lie, but she was the center of her version of events.

He said you could see the faces of the jury members sour minute on minute. He lost the case.

#22

The client called me to the hospital to write his will. (He called me himself – he knew he was terminal, but nobody got anything over on this guy. He was completely cognizant of absolutely everything until the very end).
He left token amounts to the older sons and the bulk of his modest but comfortable estate to the youngest. The youngest son, of course, was positively gleeful to learn he was getting what he thought to be a lot of money, but at the same time was confused as to why Dad would leave things that way since he was actually closer to the older sons. The older sons, who had always been respectful of Dad and responsible, were hurt and confused, especially since they knew how angry their Dad had been at the youngest. They asked what they could do to make the division of things more fair.

I recommended initially that they make a Family Settlement that could be presented to the probate court for approval. Dad’s instructions to me and to the cousin he had named administrator were that if any of the older sons challenged his will, paternity tests were to be done on them. He did not believe that any of the sons but the youngest were actually his. I would lay money on the oldest being his just because they looked so much alike. The other three, though? I didn’t think they had a prayer. The youngest was not subject to the paternity test.

The whole family was devastated at the paternity test condition. The two sons who owned the garage sat in my conference room and cried. They had no idea. The eldest was angry but didn’t hesitate. He knew that whatever his father’s suspicions were, he was actually his natural son. The fourth son was rocked. He had a heart attack that night (but survived, fortunately.) The youngest was stunned, too. It never dawned on him that his older brothers might not actually be his brothers.

I was very grateful when they decided to enter into a Family Settlement and divide the estate more equitably.

#23

Not an attorney, worked in a firm. Workers compensation claim, guy falls down at work and claims he injured many different body parts(Shoulder, Knees, Back). We tell him to stay off social media. No problem, he doesnt use social media. At trial, he tells the Judge he used to be a Spin Class Instructor, but since the accident, he cannot teach classes anymore. Welp..turns out, he continued to teach these classes after his injury. This was proved by the HOURS of surveillance the Insurance company did, showing him teaching and vigourously riding in Spin class. How did the Insurance company know he was still an active instructor? The guy posted his Full Teaching Schedule on his FB page. His potentially very lucrative claim, was quickly changed to a fraud claim against him.

#24

Client added 9 years to a short sentence. He got like a year or 2 for being involved in a drag race that the other guy crashed and severely injured someone else. Then towards the end of his short prison term he tried to escape, got 9 more years for prison escape! He became friends with John Lennon’s killer in NY prison, which was interesting.

#25

Legal videographer here…

Video taped a deposition for a man claiming work injuries so severe he could not raise his right hand above his shoulder, and his shoulder was in pain whenever he even tried to raise it above the shoulder. Sued his employer claiming it was a work injury. Then came his very first deposition.

Does anybody know the first thing the court reporter asks of the person testifying? The reporter swears them in by saying:

“Would you please raise your right hand and repeat after me…”

Then administers the oath to tell the truth…

Man who claimed not be able to raise his hand above his shoulder… raised his hand way above his shoulder. That hand and arm went up like a rocket. The guy did not even realize what he had done and kept his arm up through the whole oath.

Neither plaintiff or defense counsel caught it. The court reporter and I just looked at each other and let the depo play out. I was hired by defense counsel and showed him the first 20 seconds of the video, and took home a nice bonus because of it.

Case was dropped shortly after that depo.

#26

Friend of mine used to be a latent print analyst. Going to get prints of a suspect arrested for breaking into a home to rob it. While she’s getting the ink and paper set up, suspect shouts, “whaddya need the prints for? She looked right at me when I kicked in the door!”.

#27

NAL – I was a legal clerk for a couple years in college. Still baffles me how this one made it all the way to trial. Lady slipped & fell at a chain restaurant, “hurt” her back irreparably, wanted a huge payout. Said she slipped on butter that was on the floor. On cross exam she was asked what type of butter, answer “the little pats of butter they put out in the buffet.” Defense immediately re-called the store manager…. The store had never used that type of butter. Case ended pretty quickly. Lol.

#28

The worst ones are the ones who think they’re smarter than they are. When it comes time for depositions, broad sweeping statements of how “I would never allow discrimination in my office” and how “I’m 100% sure I never said that” are a great way to destroy your own credibility, set yourself up to get eviscerated by opposing counsel, and ultimately turn a nuisance value b******t case into something worth six figures.

Moral of the story: if you’re going to ignore the entire day of deposition prep I did with you just so you can protect your own fragile ego on the record, at least do me the courtesy of telling me to [darn] off ahead of time. .

#29

Client charged with DUI. Forced by police to give a urine sample on the side of a very busy interstate highway. Any sympathy the jury may have had for the defendant was lost however, when he fell asleep during the playing of the video of the traffic stop. He had been out all night partying the night before trial. He was found guilty. Then he lied to the judge about what would be in his system during a d**g test and his sentence was doubled.

#30

My mother was in court as a witness, in a case of criminal harassment between two of our neighbours. We basically knew that the case was ridiculous and a sham – the accused neighbour was totally innocent and was being falsely accused by the local trouble makers, who kept on provoking him and who then wanted to be able to sue him for easy money.

Anyway, by pure coincidence, the defendant was secular Jewish, just like my parents. It’s literally just a coincidence.

The two trouble maker neighbours, who were also there, were very angry to see my mother in the court. One of them then stood up in the middle of everything and yelled some c**p about how my mother is a Jew and only there because the defendant is a Jew and Jews apparently always stick to help eachother.

The judge immediately ripped him to shreds and threw the case out.

#31

I was working on a $15 million M&A deal and my client called the buyer’s attorney “Barney Fife, country hillbilly.” That attorney was the brother of the CEO of the buyer. They got so [angry] they dropped the deal.

#32

Im not a lawyer, this isnt my story. But, the lawyer who handled my business stuff and a legal dispute is a federal judge. Before he became a judge, he was a lawyer for divorces and civil stuff.

A wealthy male client filed for divorce. Theres a prenup. Its pretty iron clad. It discuses the distribution of wealth, the alimony (if any) is laid out at x amount, increasing yearly based on inflation. Theres 1 major “exception” and that is “if you are caught cheating, cheating here is defined by any sexual contact with a person before the divorce is final, you automatically get the worst terms of the prenup.” In the womans case, (if she cheats) she gets zero alimony, and a 1 time payment of 100k. In the mans case, (if he cheats) he loses the main family home, all cars that are not his daily driver, and 1/4 of his business. (A buy out option is available, but doesn’t matter to this story)

Lawyer gets to court and meets with his client in a conference room. And client is beaming. He shakes the lawyers hand. And says “hey! Mike!! I want you to meet jasmine. I met her 2 months ago. Shes amazing. We got engaged over the weekend in france!”

And mike shook her hand and slumped in the chair and said “so, we got a major problem. You are cheating on ur wife with her. And legally, this is discovery im required to hand over to the other side” hes all “how the [darn] am i cheating? We’re separated?!?!” Mike is all “cheating is any sexual contact before divorce is final. Its in ur prenup. That you wrote on ur own.”

The guy flipped his s**t. Ended up being so mad, he ditched court. Which gave him a default judgement. Meaning she gets everything she asked for. + because of the cheating + not showing up, the judge ordered that the transfer of money happen with in 30 days. As part of the initial agreement between both parties. Hes not there to contest it. So, blam.

The guy ended up trying to sneak the company to the new woman via a trust. But, its an illegal move. He also tried to hide the money with her by giving her 1.1 million dollars in cash (a bank transfer) but, the judge stopped that once ge found out and required the woman to repay the money since she was given notice also.

He fought for years. And ended up losing money, time, energy, his business, house, 6-7 cars, and his new wife. Now, (cuz i know his daughter from work) hes a retired angry man living in rural new mexico. He cant afford to golf more than once a month. And he posts about how women are scum.

Next morning edit: i certainly didnt expect this to blow up. Ty for the positive dm’s and replies. Ill try to reply if i see any questions in the thread to clarify stuff.

#33

NAL but watched as a girl in her early 20’s giggled her way through sentencing on a petty theft charge.

Instead of the same 30-day suspended sentence her remorseful looking co-defendant received, she got 90 days in county jail.

She wasn’t giggling after that.

#34

Client accused of punching another man & knocking a tooth out. He said numerous times on the stand that he had arthritis and was not capable of closing his fist to form the punch as described by the victim.

Part way through his cross examination, the magistrate stopped him to state on the record that he had watched my client clench his fist numerous times since he made that statement.

He was found guilty.

#35

Criminal prosecutor here. A patrol officer pulled over a driver for some traffic violation, I think failure to signal. After a heated roadside exchange where the driver initially refused to turn over her license, she ultimately relented and ‘thrust the license with undue force’ into the officer’s outstretched hand. The cop charged her with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer.
When asked to justify his actions, he stated that ‘people need to learn to respect the police.’ We dismissed the charge, apologized to the defendant, and told the cop to never bring us something like that again. I can’t recall if internal affairs was notified.

I work with the police every day, and the majority of them are good people. This guy was a s***.

#36

I was called for jury duty and was sitting in the courtroom watching the other potential jurors get questioned by the attorneys, just waiting for my possible turn to be questioned. One of the charges was aggravated assault.

The defense asked one juror (who was a professional videographer) if her career made her more or less likely to put stock in video footage. To me, this was a hint (but not admission) that video footage would be a big part of the case.

Before the juror could even answer, the defendant yelled from his table “I had a mask on! You can’t even see my face!”

The entire room went silent for about five seconds before the defense attorney regained his composure and asked the judge to dismiss the jury pool. The judge dismissed us back to the holding room. Five minutes later, one of the clerks of the court came in and told us (even the already selected jurors) that the trial was being rescheduled and we were all dismissed.

#37

I’m pretty sure losing a 5 million dollar defamation case and then immediately then immediately making MORE statements and having it raised to 90 million is pretty far up the list.

#38

Not an attorney, but one client of ours baffles me to this day. He had multiple cases, including aggravated battery and d**g possession, At the insistence of dude’s family, we moved heaven and earth getting him a bond, so that he could get out of jail and live with said family until the case was over. The whole process took weeks.

Less than a day after getting out, he was caught stealing $16 worth of batteries from Target. Bond revoked. To be fair, the line between stupidity and compulsion is blurred with this one.

EDIT: For anyone who’s curious, we immediately ordered a psych eval for him. He was found competent, but it also confirmed what he had mental health issues. The Agg. Batt. charge ended up being dropped, and he took a plea for time served.

#39

Commit robbery in order to hire an expensive attorney with minimal experience in criminal law rather than accept a seasoned public defender.

#40

Not my client, but defendant posted a Facebook status along the lines of that he had “taken care of business and the world is a better place because of it”. He was charged with battery after putting someone in the hospital that had attacked his 14 year old daughter. The person didn’t have a clear memory of the incident and other testimony later revealed the person beat up had an alibi for the attack in question. Most likely the girl had made up the story to avoid trouble from being out drinking underage, though we never got the full story. Anyways the dad was sentenced to 4 years in federal prison.

#41

Paralegal. Once had a convicted criminal explain to me how their [end] charge should be overturned because the victim didn’t die at the scene of the crime. The victim died at the hospital, therefore the defendant couldn’t be charged with anything more than attempted [end].

#42

I have two stories that come to mind. One, a colleague of mine, was representing an arsonist mny years ago that had allegedly set quite a large fire that burned some public land. Due to the $$ cost of the damage, it was a felony. During the State’s case in chief, he began touching himself. Recess had to be called. Funnily enough, that helped him in punishment phase, since there was clearly a mental component there, but still…big oof, and I don’t know if what had been shown up to that point would have gotten a guilty.

Second was one of mine, again, many years ago. I had gotten a guy a pretty great deal on a serious theft charge. Prior to it being entered, he ended up picked up by the sheriff’s office for violating conditions of bond. How did he violate? The Sheriff alleged that he used the banking information OF THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE to pass fake checks. This meant that in the new charge, the sheriff’s office was the victim.

Needless to say, the deal vanished.

#43

IANAL. I handle work comp claims. This one always cracks me up. Guy claims bilateral wrist injuries from repetitive motion cutting meat. We get “word” aka he posts on his Facebook about him competing in an MMA style event. Send surveillance there which gets this dude fighting with no issues.

#44

Am criminal defense lawyer. Client arrested on DUI. Client lived in small town. He and his wife would drive to the one bar in town, drink, then walk to their houseboat after a night at the bar (1/4 mile away). He and wife know everyone in the bar, another patron they know gets blasted, bar owner says she can’t stay, client and wife walk her to his car to stay there until ride comes.

Client gets her in backseat of the suv. Client is drunk, drops keys on the way to front seat, opens now unlocked front door, turns on car lights to see (he walked around the front from rear passenger), cops are waiting to see if people leave bar drunk, sees lights, says he saw driving, immediately rolled up arrests client.

Client has prior dui from 12ish years before. Judge agreed that it wouldn’t come in, jury wouldn’t hear it unless he “opened the door.” Can’t win the case unless dude testifies. I prep him, continue to prep him, keep prepping him, but tell him under NO CIRCUMSTANCES can he say he would never drive drunk, never do anything like that. Basically anything about the past = no.

Direct is going well, gave him a beautiful, easy, last question where he could explain the night, explain why he was upset he got arrested (because he wasn’t driving and was doing everything right).

“I would never do something like that.” Door open, judge lets da in rebuttal bring in old dui. Jury took about 25 minutes to convict.

And that’s about one of a hundred stories. Life is never dull in the criminal defense world.

#45

She was doing “magnet therapy” with a “therapist” five hours away by phone. The “therapist” had the magnets. My client would hold the phone up to various parts of her body that needed the magnetic energy to help it heal.

For $2000/ month.

She never told me about this in the dozens of hours we prepared by talking everything through. I learned during the other side’s cross of her.

I’ve never been tempted to head desk in court before.

#46

Not in the US, but the judge asked if the defendant was remorseful (if you show regrets, you can have some leniency).

“No”.

The guy didn’t understand the question, and when he doesn’t, he just usually says “no”.

#47

Client returns to court drunk after luncheon adjournment. Falls asleep, and his head drops right into the side of the witness box, whereupon he proceeds to snore. Loudly.

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