Alan shore´s closing in Serial 5 Episode 1 against tobacco.
I have decided to write it down.
When it comes to the goal of the lawsuit like this, it is
obviously about money. Alan want the tobacco company
to pay certain amount of money to compensate the lost which
caused by defendant.
But Alan haven´t mentioned even a word about this in the
closing. How did he do that?
At the following part I will quote the sentences to explain it in
detail.
First part of closing
Since beginning of the closing Alan try to connect the suffer of
victim (the father of client, who has been smoking for fifty years)
to the daily experience of jury and the pain for the client who lost
beloved father to the pain of jury, who my lost friends or relatives
because of smoking with sentence „ We all know what happened
here, we also all know this death. Everybody in this room knows
somebody who has fought the same battle and died this agonizing,
brutal, excruci…“
Before the alan´s closing the attorney of defendant has pointed out,
the tobacco company has done nothing in this particular case.
One one people died unnaturally. There must be someone, who has
done something wrong.
So afterwards Alan has throwed out the standpoint gradually. Michael
Rohdes has done nothing wrong and you will notice, that alan expressed this
point with statement but not assertion. „ Michael Rhodes was eleven
years old when he started smoking. it was 1948, at that time there
was no known risk. And even if there were, at eleven, he certainly lacked
the capacity to assume it. „ The purpose of using statement is to let the jury
feel that as attorney of plaintiff his standpoint is actually quite neutral
without less emotion. The jury would tend to be more willingly to accept the
point introduced by him.
After the expression of what had happened he concentrated on one point
„ Michael Rohdes got addicted at every early age.“ „Why did he get addicted
so young ?“ everybody would like to ask the question. „They manufacture
them to be addicted“ This is the fault of tobacco company. During the state
of the methods used by the tobacco company he has mentioned „ammonia-
compound“, which is hard to understand for the jury. This is kind of terminology
known only by expert. So alan has connected it to the daily known subject „crack
cocaine“ with sentence „ it´s basically the same principle used in crack cocaine“
Every american knows what cocaine is. It is in any case bad thing. Alan has
connected the cocaine with the product of tobacco company.
At this time point, alan has only explained one aspects of his point, that michael
Rohdes got addicted because tobacco company do it on purpose. Another aspect
why when he was so young he has already get addicted is still open. As you
see Alan has used blockbuster to attack this point afterwards.
Subsequently alan has expose how absurd „obscene“ is the conclusions of the
defendant attorney and the despicable tactics they have employed. „ And let´s look a the obscene strategy they employed here. „Smoking may cause
cancer but it didm´t cause this particular cancer.“ „it wash´t our cigarette“
Or, „it was genetic“. Or, „Asbestos“. Or.“A paper mill“. all sentences
were assertions. I need to mention here, which has enhance the effect
of alan´s neutral statement. Following this sentence with „ Never do
they take responsibility, Ever“ Alan has pointed out that those
companies have historically tried anything to avoid responsibility
and are now still doing it.
Second Part of the closing
At the end of first part arguments alan has called tobacco company
cockroaches. And point out they do harm and can always find a way
to survive. Alan has repeated this metaphor several times in whole
closing and imperceptibly set up the image for tobacco company in the
brain of the jury, disgusting, harmful, but always can escape from
punishment.
As we all know, we care about the people who have close relationship
with us, our parents, and other relatives. But who we care most, our children.
In the second part of closing, alan has said out the even more worse thing than
get customer addicted is to seduce children to smoke and let them get addicted.
He has described the picture that the tobacco company done to seduce kids to
smoke. „The put up brightly colored ads at kids´eye level in convenience store“
This picture has especially strong emotion impact if you try to picture the
scenario in your head. You would suddenly realized the tobacco company has
done such thing since long you even haven´t noticed it, but your children could
possiblely already get influenced by it. The damage is just there. Continually
alan has told the jury, They are not only just doing that they are doing that in
scientific methods sysmatically , much more effective and have done much more
bad things to the society, firstly to our children.
One very interesting things about choosing words here is „ Because you make a
product that kills off your consumers you have to find a way to recruit new customers. „ what´s very interesting here is actually two words „consumers“ and „customers“ refer both to smokers. Why has alan chose costumers behind „kill off“ but „customers“ behind „recruit“. Consumers is with less affection, In the computer
science we use „consumer and producer“ to describe the relationship of different communication partners. It is cold. The chose of word want to exactly give you that
kind of feeling the company has no feeling when it concerns „kill off“ smokers. no sympathy; no conscience. But when they want to recruit „new smokers“ they appear to be nice and want to give you some pleasant flavor at first even suddenly became a good adviser for your life style. „Velour magazine did a whole spread on the cigarette diet“.
After the statement again, alan has attached the another despicable „feature“ of tobacco company „hypocritical“, which has already done unknowingly by alan with the art of choosing proper words.
I think the way alan expounded the two aspects of point is quite similar. With statements at first and then conclude the bad „features“ of the tobacco company and focus on attacking it at the end, although the strategies used in statement and accusation are different.
The third part of closing.
At third part Alan start to say his demands on the jury. Of course, he hash´t said it directly, you should sentence the tobacco company pay a lot money to customer. he start with a radical demand „ban the cigarette“ we all know and jury know that would not be possible, even there are strong reasons to support this point. But the humanity has its dark sides. Astonishingly alan has token one step back afterwards.
The tobacco company need to be more strict regulated and the legislators have been bought. So "the conscience has to come from you , if real regulation is to happen, it has to come from you“. One question is how. Regulations literally need to be done by federal government under certain laws which made by legislators. Legislator would be influenced by public opinion showed in the form of the result of law suits. How strong is the opinion that the tobacco company should be more strictly regulated is demonstrated on the punishment which the jury sentenced in amount of money. I think, this is whole logical behind the words.
Alan hash´t pointed it out. He needed not to and he also should not.
If he pointed that out, jury could have that impression, „ you have spend so long time to package yourself as fighter for justice with conscience. Actually what you think in your head is all about money. Fortunately I haven´t deceived by you. The words from a hypocritical person can certainly not be believed
But notice at the last sentence alan has mentioned „ Last year alone they made twelve billion dollars in profits, how can that be? how can that be?“ he has mentioned the amount of profits on purpose to remind the jury that the tobacco company have enough money to pay punishment and they got their money without conscience by letting people die. They must be punished.
As we see, alan has actually no strong arguments on this particular case. But he has constructed another theory here is that the tobacco company is generally bad and they do harm to children, they has generally done bad things to all the smokers who died unnaturally and to let the jury feel they have moral obligation to do something to change this.
And it has worked.
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