Bad Message
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kaustin-9 — 19 years ago(August 23, 2006 12:31 AM)
Another thing that was shocking to me: When Jackie declares to the jury that he "don't rat on NOBODY!", wasn't that clearly implying that he and the other defendants had commited crimes? What did the jury think he meant? Did they think that was a good thing? And what was Jackie thinking when he said it?
From everything I've read and the director's comments, most of the trial testimony is taken straight from the actual transcripts. -
j_captain — 19 years ago(September 05, 2006 02:07 AM)
Well yes, but don't forget that the government's case was also weak to begin with. Their star witness was faulty. In fact almost all of their witnesses were faulty. This was not a flawless trial by the prosecutors. Sometimes it takes a smartass defense "attorney" or a plain average 6th-grade-educated joe to point that out to the jury in more ways than one. And when that's the case, you're always taking a chance at the verdict.
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therealcromar — 17 years ago(March 28, 2009 08:18 AM)
Well yes, but don't forget that the government's case was also weak to begin with. Their star witness was faulty. In fact almost all of their witnesses were faulty. This was not a flawless trial by the prosecutors.
I completely agree. The prosecution's case was awful and even the cops they presented weren't convincing. Their "star witness" was their worst witness.
In a righteous system, guilty criminals need to go free if the prosecution fails to present the case. It's something we have to have to protect all of us, in case we ourselves wind up in court falsely accused. If we allow the government to just get free convictions without working for it, or without providing any real evidence, then they can use the same power against us.
Law enforcement needs to get a bloody nose every once in awhile to remind them to do their jobs. This is what people aren't understanding about the bailout situation today. These failed businessmen - and the next generation of future business people in college right now - need to learn that they will not be saved by taxpayer dollars if they screw up. The lessons need to be learned now, and if they aren't, the mistakes will not only continue, but escalate.
I trust the filmmaker's claim of total accuracy, so I say that the verdict was correct given the shoddy case. -
riku148 — 12 years ago(September 12, 2013 12:40 AM)
To expand on that we only saw a small portion of the witnesses and it was all sensationalized for the movie. What people don't seem to understand is that the prosecutors failed not because of Jackie but because they set up a convoluted case against over 20 people. Not only is it hard for anyone to judge that many people at once, even if they are scum, guilty without getting sick to their stomachs for having impacted 20+ families but also the idea of having hundreds of witnesses completely backfired on the prosecution. It's too hard to keep the facts straight and no amount of organization was going to help.
It's better to have a few witnesses that can really shine than hundreds of mediocre witnesses that just leave a bad taste in your mouth. There is no way the prosecution could have went through that many witnesses efficiently and because of that they ended up with a bunch of bad witnesses instead of a few good ones. -
bmks — 19 years ago(March 05, 2007 09:20 PM)
Actually, he did not really matter what he said or what the jury thought he meant. The prosecution has the responsibility to prove the defendant committed the crime. The defendant does not need to prove he did not do it. Everything is up to the prosecution to prove the case.
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Hancockenstein — 13 years ago(October 01, 2012 11:48 PM)
it's very frustrating to many people and probably equally so to me. regardless I still agree with how we should have faith in the system and accept verdicts, even if not an ideal one due to a weakness in the system. That "weakness" has likely served to also prevent unfair results for a defendant who actually is innocent or will some day at least
maybe it's a bit unrealistic for Jackie to actually choose to say that though, and a jury of people who are not perfect to react in any way but negatively to such a statement. -
The_Dougster — 10 years ago(June 21, 2015 12:46 PM)
When Jackie declares to the jury that he "don't rat on NOBODY!", wasn't that clearly implying that he and the other defendants had commited crimes? What did the jury think he meant? Did they think that was a good thing? And what was Jackie thinking when he said it?
I agree. I realize that the jurors were burned out from such a long, exhausting case. Having said that, they clearly copped out and dropped the ball. It
does
send the wrong message. -
VarlOatesIII — 19 years ago(September 11, 2006 10:49 PM)
The fact is that our judicial system is disastrous.
Rapists, Child Molesters, Murderers
any government that allows the most evil criminals, such as the noted type, to ever return to society is just as guilty as the criminals.
Rape, child molestation, and murder are permanent criminal acts not that any of the defendants in this story ever committed the two former types of crime. But I'm betting that at least one of the defendants, at one time or another, committed the third type of crime; of course, proof would be required to win a conviction. So, as for the three noted areas of criminal activity, you can't rehabilitate the perpetrator. But our government (for inexcusable reasons) allows these types of perpetrators (animals) to "pay for their crimes with time in prison," as if there is a price for committing such intolerable crimes.
It's a rotten system, so the outcome of the trial in
Find Me Guilty
isn't a shock. -
Weirdo123098 — 19 years ago(September 26, 2006 06:22 PM)
They were trying to charge them under the RICO act, which is a beep way for the judical system to bulk to the convictions. The fact that the prosecution wanted to try to sentence them all would make them fail.
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Kakaroto — 19 years ago(September 27, 2006 10:33 AM)
Dude, in a criminal trial, the prosecution's role is to convince the jury "beyond reasonable doubt" of the Defendant's guilt.
Beyond. Reasonable. Doubt. 3 sweet words.
Essentially meaning the jury has to be 100% sure that all evidences, facts and prosecution's case points to a guilty verdict. 100%. Not even 99.9%.
For, example in a murder trial. Even if your gut feeling tells you the Defendant is 101% guilty, even if he has a criminal record as thick as the yellow pages, even if he absolutely hates the guts of the person he allegedly murdered as long as there is a MERE beep in the procecution's case, i.e. lack of direct evidence linking him to the client, he walks.
Simple as that. The Defence only has to show the 1% missing in the Prosecution's case. This is called casting the shadow of doubt.
In Find Me Guilty, we are not told of the lengthy charges being levelled against the mob. Perhaps being charged under the RICO Act (and I speak loosely here as I have no idea what the Act actually says), there are many elements to prove for a finding of guilt. In all probabilities, the shenanigans of Jackie probably made the jury feel that the Prosecution has not adequately discharged its burden of proving guilt to the point of beyond reasonable doubt.
Don't go slammin' the movie when you've not understood the concept of the role of the Defence in a Criminal Trial- Everyone needs a good role model. I'm happy with just the regular Playboy ones -
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phreak-11 — 19 years ago(October 11, 2006 11:10 PM)
it's as simple as that: you understand the concept chances are you won't watch the movie for several reasons. next chance is you watch the movie but aren't bored enough to comment it on the web. and the obvious third upon other possibilities to be in any relation with this movie is not to understand what's going on, having expected a mixture of the godfather and the jury and not seeing the point of a movie that's literally the replay of something that happened and upon its absurdity in a lot of ways should not happen this way again - and I wanna thank some of the above who compared this aspect of the movie to the reminding function of holocaust based movies. And as this movie is neither an action movie nor a grisham novel and due to the lack of an overly amount of humor this movie is not pushing your buttons in the way you want to be entertained.
So, which is the point of my statement, if you don't understand the whole conceptual point of this movie, that's fine by me, I'm sure there's some wrestling show on the other network you can highly relate to.
oh and if you didnt even get MY point then don't even worry about the point of the movie. -
SilverScreen_hu — 19 years ago(October 22, 2006 02:24 PM)
I think, that you should watch the movie again, you shouldn't take it literally. This movie is exactly a twisted mirror of the legal system.
The best summary and the base of this movie is, what the Prosecutor Sean Kierney answered to his colleague when he mentioned, that one of the female juror thought about Jackie DiNorscio that he's "cute".
Lot of times you simply cannot expect objectivity from jurors (the strength of accusation is irrelevant). -
pacman-31 — 19 years ago(October 27, 2006 01:15 PM)
They were not on trial for all the crimes they obviously committed, they were on trial for consipiracy (the 'C' in the RICO act) so the prosecution had to show that they were all connected. That's whey they kept trying to link Jack and all the others guys' crimes to Nick Calabrazi to prove they are a crime family. If they were all on charge for specific crimes, when Jackie says "Have I ever denied using Cocaine" (which is actual dialogue from the real court case) they would have abviosly found him guilty then right? The whole point with Jackie saying how much he loved the guys, was to show that he loved them because he grew up with them and thats why they always hang out, not because they are conspiring to commit crimes. More evidence of this is when Jackie holds up the photo in the end and says the three kids were "Conspiring to buy ice cream." He is trying to show that they all grew up to together and are basically family. Just because one member of a family is guilty of a crime, does not mean they are all guilty of a crime and that is EXACTLY what the prosecution had to prove. Your statement may be one of the most ignorant concatination of words I have ever seen.
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vannalee-shop — 19 years ago(November 27, 2006 02:54 PM)
I liked this movie. It was a bit of a farce. The jazzy score kept things pretty light. Not showing photos of dead people made it a lot easier to avoid focusing on the countless victims of the mobsters.
If there is a message to be made about the justice system, perhaps it's that prosecutors should focus more on evidence than on trying to make history and get into the record books with maximum exhibits, defendants, witnesses and trial lengths. The prosecutors came off as arrogant for overfiling indictments. If I was a juror on this case, I would have resented being imposed upon for this length of time, not to mention the bombardment of less than damning evidence from which I was supposed to conclude that someone must have done something.
They should have tried these defendants a few at a time for specific violations, which would have been more feasable under state laws than the federal RICO statute. But to do this, they would have needed seized evidence and truthful witnesses who actually saw crimes in progress or heard confessions, as opposed to those shown in the film who couldn't credibly connect the dots all the way to the top. The prosecutors just looked greedy. -
gormly — 19 years ago(December 04, 2006 05:47 PM)
"If I was a juror on this case, I would have resented"
would it have swayed your verdict as well?
If so that shows exactly that people like YOU (99.9% of us) are essentially what is wrong with our justice system.
We get an impression and no matter what.. it colors our views. -
ssbfz2 — 19 years ago(December 26, 2006 01:37 PM)
While they were actually on trial for conspiracy, the C in RICO actually stands for "Corrupt". RICO is the Racketeering In Corrupt Organizations Act. I don't know why the movie made the mistake of claiming that the C meant conspiracy, but it doesn't. I am not only a mob enthusiast, but also a law student. Your statement may be one of the most ignorant concatination of words I have ever seen.
