Chewbacca defense

Origin

In the episode, Chef reaches out to a major record company executive, asking to be credited as the writer of a made-up Alanis Morissette song titled "Stinky Britches." He backs this up with a recording of himself singing the tune from twenty years earlier. The record company turns him down and brings in Johnnie Cochran, who sues Chef for harassment. During the trial, Chef's lawyer Gerald Broflovski points out that Cochran is using his "famous" Chewbacca defense, which he "used during the Simpson trial."

Broflovski argues with logic and evidence, including Chef's proper copyright, but Cochran fires back with a line that mimics his closing argument in the O. J. Simpson case. In that real case, Cochran told the jury, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit," after Simpson couldn't pull on bloody leather gloves over medical gloves. Gerald Uelmen came up with that phrase in a June 28, 1995 memo to Cochran, saying it fit both the gloves and the prosecution's case.

In the episode, Cochran's tactic works: the jury convicts Chef of harassing the record label. The judge first hands down an eight-million-year sentence, then corrects it to a $2 million fine due in 24 hours or four years in prison. A benefit concert raises money for Chef to hire Cochran for his own lawsuit against the label. At the concert, Cochran changes his mind and takes the case for free, using the Chewbacca defense again.

This time, he pulls out a monkey puppet and yells, "Here, look at the monkey. Look at the silly monkey!" which makes a juror's head explode.

Use

The Associated Press obituary for Cochran mentioned the Chewbacca defense parody as one way the attorney entered pop culture. Criminologist Thomas O'Connor states that when DNA evidence shows inclusion, about the only thing a lawyer can do is attack the lab's quality assurance or use a Chewbacca defense to razzle-dazzle the jury about complexity. Forensic scientist Erin Kenneally argues that court challenges to digital evidence frequently use the Chewbacca defense by presenting multiple alternative explanations to confuse the jury into reasonable doubt.

Kenneally provides methods to rebut such a defense and has presented this topic with colleague Anjali Swienton before the Florida State Court System and at the 2005 American Academy of Forensic Sciences annual meeting. The term has also appeared in political commentary. Ellis Weiner wrote in The Huffington Post that right-wing commentator Dinesh D'Souza used the Chewbacca defense in criticism of Nancy Pelosi, defining it as asserting a claim by saying something so nonsensical that the listener's brain shuts down.

Jay Heinrichs' book Thank You for Arguing states the term was sneaking into the lexicon as another name for the red herring fallacy. Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times that John Taylor uses the Chewbacca defense as a seemingly last option for defending his hawkish monetary policy position.

Analysis by lawyers

Lawyer Josh Gilliland states in his blog that a judge likely would say 'I have a bad feeling about this' and possibly declare a mistrial if such an argument were made in court. He notes that a party successfully using the Chewbacca defense to confuse a jury into jury nullification in a civil lawsuit risks the losing party winning on a judgment notwithstanding the verdict. In Chef's case, the copyright violation should have entitled him to a judgment as a matter of law. Lawyer Devin Stone outlined things that would never happen in a real case, giving the episode a 'C-' for legal accuracy.