Chewbacca defense is a legal strategy in which a criminal defense lawyer tries to confuse the jury rather than refute the case of the prosecutor. The name Chewbacca defense comes from an episode of the American animated series South Park. The defense is an example of a red herring, a type of informal fallacy in which one making an argument fails to address the issue in question.
About Chewbacca defense in brief
Chewbacca defense is a legal strategy in which a criminal defense lawyer tries to confuse the jury rather than refute the case of the prosecutor. The name Chewbacca defense comes from an episode of the American animated series South Park. In the episode, the character of Chef contacts a major record company executive, seeking to have his name credited as the composer of a fictional Alanis Morissette hit called ‘Stinky Britches’ The record company refuses and hires Johnnie Cochran, who files a lawsuit against Chef for harassment. Cochran resorts to his ‘famous’ ‘Chewbacca’ defense, which he used during the O.
J. Simpson murder trial, where he said to the jury, ‘If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit!’ The defense is an example of a red herring, a type of informal fallacy in which one making an argument fails to address the issue in question, or an irrelevant conclusion. Often an opposing counsel can legally object to such arguments by declaring them irrelevant, character evidence, or argumentative. The Associated Press obituary for Cochran mentioned the ‘Chewbacca Defense’ parody as one of the ways in which the attorney was influenced by pop culture.
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This page is based on the article Chewbacca defense published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
