GAIL DRAKE: The magic grits

“The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him.” — Proverbs 18:17

In the courtroom drama “My Cousin Vinny,” Vinny Gambini (who just passed the New York bar and had never tried a case) was asked to defend his cousin in a murder trial — in Alabama. While cross-examining a witness, Vinny asked if it were possible for two different men to drive up in a similar car, go into the store, shoot the clerk, rob him and then leave.

Tipton: No. They didn’t have enough time.

Gambini: Well, how much time was they in the store?

Tipton: Five minutes.

Gambini: You testified earlier that the boys went into the store and you had just begun to make breakfast. Do you remember what you had?

Tipton: Eggs and grits.

Gambini: Eggs and grits. I like grits, too. How do you cook your grits? … Instant grits?

Tipton: No self-respecting Southerner uses instant grits. I take pride in my grits.

Gambini: So, Mr. Tipton, how could it take you five minutes to cook your grits when it takes the entire grit-eating world 20 minutes?

Tipton: I don’t know. I’m a fast cook, I guess.

Gambini: … Did you say you’re a fast cook? That’s it? Are we to believe that boiling water soaks into a grit faster in your kitchen than on any place on the face of the earth?

Tipton: I don’t know.

Gambini: Well, perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your stove! Were these magic grits? I mean, did you buy them from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?

D.A.: Objection, Your Honor!

Judge: Sustained

Gambini: Are you sure about that five minutes?

Tipton: I may have been mistaken.

Sometimes it’s just pure physics.

How many times over these years in Juvenile Court has an addicted parent declared that he/she is not using drugs? Then we tender drug screens that show how many different drugs for which they tested positive. The (actual) stories told:

“I was standing next to someone who was smoking.”

“My marijuana reefer must have been laced with meth.”

“It must have been the bedsheets I slept in in that house.”

“The neighbors use, and it came through the air conditioning vent.”

“That guy I kissed must be using drugs.”

The laws of physics is often presented as evidence in criminal cases, including forensic science techniques that measure blood spatter, ballistics, and bullet trajectory. Cold cases have been solved with developments in forensic science. A 1961 murder case in Columbia, S.C., was resolved four decades later when advances in ballistics testing verified that the gun that killed the taxi driver victim was the same as that owned by a soldier who went AWOL from nearby Fort Jackson.

Trajectory of the bullets was one of the factors considered in the murder trial of South African professional sprinter “Blade Runner” Oscar Pistorius for the shooting death of his girlfriend in his bathroom. The trajectory of the bullets indicated that he was standing on his “stump” legs, moved around, and was two feet from the bathroom when he shot through the door several times.

Physics was cited at length in the recent celebrity trial in Utah in which a retired optometrist sued actress Gwenneth Paltrow over a 2016 skiing incident for $3.1 million. Expert witness biochemical engineer Irving Scher gave the jury a physics lesson, writing out several formulas, calculations and diagrams that measured the skiers’ motions in “newtons.” He opined that Ms. Patrow’s version of events was “consistent with the laws of physics.” Paltrow won the case and the $1 verdict she requested.

And producers, directors and actors on crime-solving shows like NCIS and CSI can trace their income to the ever-burgeoning field of forensic science.

The original story presented is sometimes not the accurate story. Wise are those who thoughtfully consider all the factors, evidence, logic — and the laws of physics.