“Fluency” quotes from Law & Order

Do me a favor and read this crumb his rights. I don't have the guts for it.

Green

Me, neither. But I don't want there to be any technical difficulties.

19 manslaughter counts? Your Honor, my client is accused of selling sterile saline solution, a harmless substance.

Hardly harmless if it's passed off as flu vaccine. Mr. Peters recklessly caused the death of these people by providing a useless vaccine to a marketplace driven by panic and hysteria.

The definition of recklessness is the conscious disregard of a substantial risk.

The phony vaccines were sold to at-risk groups. The elderly, young children, people with chronic medical conditions. The victims didn't get the vaccinations they needed because they wrongly believed they were protected by Mr. Peters' worthless version. If I could charge him with 19 counts of murder, too, I would.

Your Honor, my client allegedly sold sterile saline solution to one party who sold it to another, who sold it to a third, who gave it to someone else who may or may not have gotten the flu. And if they did, may or may not have died from it.

Gave it? It was injected into their bodies in lieu of the real vaccine, one that these individuals desperately needed. This "harmless" saline solution would be used by physicians who mistakenly thought they were protecting their patients from a life-threatening illness.

Your Honor?

Save your breath, Mr. Pollack. I, too, regret that your client can't be charged with murder. No bail. Defendant is remanded.

McCoy

Mr. Peters, did you ever see an old movie called The Third Man?

Your Honor?

Mr. McCoy?

McCoy

The defendant says he couldn't foresee any substantial risk to his actions. I'd like to explore that state of mind a little further.

Witness may answer.

The Third Man, with Orson Welles. It's been a long time.

McCoy

Orson Welles plays a black marketeer who steals penicillin, and then dilutes and sells it with tragic consequences. Death, amputation, children dying.

Objection.

McCoy

It's a parallel situation, Your Honor. I think the analogy is apt.

Overruled.

McCoy

There's a famous scene on a ferris wheel.

I remember that scene.

McCoy

Orson Welles goes on a ride on a ferris wheel with his friend, and it stops when they get to the top. His friend, who's played by Joseph Cotton, asks, "Why? Why did you do this?" Orson Welles says, "For the money." Joseph Cotton is horrified. "Have you no conscience? How do you live with yourself?" Orson Welles points to the people on the ground far below, and the people on the ground are very small, walking around in the square. And Welles says, "Would you really feel anything if one of those dots down there suddenly stopped moving?" What was your expectation when you labelled your saline solution as flu vaccine and then sold it in bulk to people like Sklar?

That they'd sell it to someone else.

McCoy

And it would eventually be used as vaccine?

[chokes up] Sure, eventually.

McCoy

And you couldn't foresee the risk to those patients? They were just dots to you, weren't they? Far away, insignificant.

Objection!

McCoy

And if they suddenly stopped moving, who'd care? Not you!

Your Honor!

All right, Mr. McCoy. You've made your point.

McCoy

Nothing further, Your Honor.