Courts

Merrick Garland Loves 'My Cousin Vinny' And Isn't Afraid To Tell Us All About It

In fairness, it really is a good cross-examination.

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The ATL readership generally agrees that My Cousin Vinny is the best work of legal fiction of all time. Get out of here with your To Kill A Mockingbird weak sauce. To Kill A Mockingbird was The Green Book in a courtroom. There, I said what you’re all thinking.

It turns out, D.C. Circuit Chief (and associate Supreme Court justice on Earth-2) Judge Merrick Garland is as big a fan of My Cousin Vinny too. In an opinion released today in Novato v. NLRB, Judge Garland went on an extended jag about the valuable lessons the movie teaches real-life attorneys:

Hat tip to Keith Lee of LawyerSmack who highlighted the opinion on Twitter:

Judge Garland determined that the NLRB and National Union of Healthcare Workers successfully eviscerated a supervisor who claimed to have fired union organizers before an election for sleeping on the job. But as Judge Garland points out, the witness’s timeline didn’t make a lick of sense and sounded a lot like the Deep South eyewitness who couldn’t match up his testimony with how long it took to cook his grits.

It’s a fun opinion. That the United States Supreme Court has missed out on this good humor and incisive wit has to be the most depressing thing about his failed nomination.

Well, that and the ongoing aggressive rollback of decades of precedent protecting America’s civil rights.

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(Check out the whole opinion on the next page.)

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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