The Pelican Brief

0:00Warning, we are not your attorneys. Please, don't take anything we say as legal advice. I'm Jeff. I'm Mike. And I'm Derek. And you are listening to the Not-so-Granjuru. Which is now sponsored by Morwapi LLC. Hey Jeff, how's it going? Hey Mike. No Derek today. Going good, how are you? What are we talking about this week? This week we're talking about the Pelican Brief. From 1993, starring Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts. Oh wow, how topical. Why is that topical? It's not at all. Okay. Yeah, we're talking about the Pelican Brief. Derby Shaw is a law student at Tulane University in New Orleans.

1:02It washington DC, an assassin from the Middle East kills two Supreme Court justices. By the way, the assassin is played by Stanley Tucci for some reason. I'm certainly not complaining that the Tucci is in this movie, but come on 1993. This is... If you've cast Stanley Tucci, just have him play someone from Europe, at least. But whatever. So Derby writes a brief, and I'm putting heavy quotation marks around that word, in which she theorizes about why the two justices might have been killed. They agreed on only one thing, environmental protection. And there is a case about environmental protection winding its way through the courts, a case about protecting pelicans from an oil pipeline. And so we have the Pelican Brief. Derby shares that brief with one of her law school professors, whom she also happens to be in a relationship with. He then shares it with a friend at the FBI, and soon both of them are dead, and Derby is on the run. She joins up with a reporter, great-grandmother, played by Denzel Washington,

2:03various further-type shenanigans ensue as an underhanded White House advisor, tries to cover up the fact that the owner of the company involved in the lawsuit is the president's biggest campaign donor. Eventually, the evidence becomes public, and Derby flees the country for her safety. And that's the Pelican Brief. So I guess the first thing we're going to talk about is why is this called the Pelican Brief? And it's because pelicans are a bird that is a fact... No, okay. It's because they don't know what a brief in a memo are. Nope. Normally, normally the way that attorneys refer, use the terms brief and memo, a brief is usually persuasive writing, where you're citing case law, and you're making an argument about why the court should decide in your favor. You're filing some difficult motion, and the judge will have both sides brief the issue. And it's normally not something that would be speculating about why Supreme Court Justice have been assassinated, but also it's not something...

3:04The document that in question was mostly for internal use. We have no reason to think that it was being submitted to a court or anything. It's probably a legal memo. Or maybe even more accurate, accurately like... Speculative news article. We don't really know what she wrote, but I don't think it was supposed to go to a court. We do know that she went to... She went somewhere and got them to give her documents with a Freedom of Information Act. Or threatened that to the beginning. Can I help you? Yes, I'd like to see this file, please. Why? It's a public record, isn't it? Same by public. Are you familiar with the Freedom of Information Act? This file has all the pleadings and correspondence. The rest is discovery exhibits in the trial. When was the trial? Last summer. Went on for two months. Where's the appeal? Not perfected yet. I think the deadline is August 1st. Thank you. I don't know what information was publicly available there that she could have gotten from threatening a FOIA action

4:09that would have really... If this random law student could have found it, why didn't... You assume that reporters are going to be talking about why two random judges died in dramatic fashion. Yeah, you'd think so. And presumably, you know, presumably she was looking for documents relating to this lawsuit that she's postulating as the reason for all of this. Which documents are public records. Except in very rare circumstances. No reason to think any of those would have applied here. You could make it... Go on. You could try to make a case for like trade secrets and that certain things should be kept under seal. But not generally like the complaint. You know, the basic... Yeah. You know, the basic pleadings of a lawsuit. Yeah. Do you want to jump to the part about the three jurors or whatever? Yeah. The lawsuit that she's talking about has a... They have a weird line where they mentioned that there were three jurors finding one way and the judge disagreed with them.

5:12Now it takes seven years for the pelican suit to go to trial in like Charles. Three men jury, caring less about the pelican than jobs, votes in favor of mtees. But the judge rules to keep the injunction against drilling in place because he thinks green fund is proven its point about the pelican. A federally protected species and it's apparent that green fund will appeal. It's just a strange little thing to possibly because what court has three jurors in it. Yeah. And I don't know if Jeff, you have any speculation on that? I don't... With regard to three jurors, no clue. I'm not aware of... First of all, this is a federal court. She talks about it being appealed to the fifth circuit. So this is a federal case. I am not aware of any article three, like constitutional court that is... That only has three jurors. You can have a jury of, you know, 12. Or you can have a case go just in front of a judge. But I'm not aware of anything that's just three jurors.

6:14Now there is... In a case where you have a jury of 12. And they find one way. The judge in the right circumstances can overrule them. If the judge concludes that no reasonable jury could have found for the party that prevailed. You can file a judgment notwithstanding... A motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Which because of laden is abbreviated to JNOV. So that is the thing. But I don't know what the three jurors is. Yeah. It sounds like what she's describing is JNOV. It doesn't make sense in the context. The closest thing that I encounter that's similar to that is... In Philadelphia, there's an arbitration track for civil cases. Where you could appear in front of an arbitration panel of three attorneys. And if you don't... If that case doesn't go the way you want, you might appeal to a judge. That's absolutely not what John Grisham was describing. But is the closest situation I can imagine? We're like, oh yes, three people went one way and then I appealed and the judge went the other.

7:14That's the closest thing I can imagine. It seems like accidentally similar to what was described in the... What's interesting is when I was... When I watched it the first time most recently, I'd seen it once longer. But when I watched it this time and she mentions a jury of three, I thought she was going to talk about a three-judge panel of a federal circuit court. And that she was just taking some poetic license and referring to them as a jury. But no, she's talking about explicitly a jury of three. And I don't know it just doesn't make any sense. And maybe that's the movie and not the book. That's always a possibility. Yeah, it totally possible that some script actor came in there and changed it. It is a little weird just because John Grisham was an attorney and should know what he was writing. Maybe he just pretends to... Because he messed it up, no one thought to double-check it. But yeah, it's not the first time he's gotten something wrong.

8:15Sure. And you know, you got to have drama. So play a little fast and loose with things. So let's talk about... Which brings us to Bowers Against Hardwick. A police officer entered Mr. Hardwick's apartment ostensibly disserving with a warrant for an unpaid violation for drinking in public. They caught him with an open bottle of beer. When he entered Mr. Hardwick's bedroom, he coincidentally found him in bed with another man. The officer arrested Hardwick for violating Georgia's statute, which outlawed Sodomy. Now, even though Georgia dropped the case, Hardwick brought suit to challenge the constitutionality of the statute. Now, what was his claim? Yeah. Did it violate his right of privacy? Why? Because it's Hardwick's home. He's got a right to do as he pleases there. But what if he decided to sell drugs at his home or engage in child abuse in his home? Yeah. Because those actions don't fit within the right of privacy.

9:17Beginning with Griswald, has limited the right of privacy to actions which are intimate, which are deeply personal actions, which allow us to control our lives to define who we are. Yeah, but how is that a constitutional claim? There's no right to define oneself written into the constitution. There's not even a right of privacy in the bill of rights. If the state of Georgia can regulate Hardwick's sexuality engaged in private with consenting adults, Hardwick cannot be free. The constitution was written to ensure limited government. If there's no right of privacy, if Georgia can enforce the statute, we sacrifice the liberty the framers thought they guaranteed us. Will the Supreme Court disagreed with you, Miss Shaw? They found that the statute did not violate the right of privacy. Now, why is that? Because they're wrong. Law school for a bit. Because Darby's a law student. Not clear how far into law school she is. She's taking a constitutional law class. Now, constitutional law, you generally have it in your first year of law school. At least we did a record. And I think the ABA says that that is a like required one L course.

10:22That is the requirement. I don't know if it was in 1993. That's funny years before we were law school. Yeah, that being said, I don't think it could come too late in law school because you need it to understand a lot of what follows. But she may also be in the class that is targeting a particular part of the Constitution because the, you know, your first year common law class. Frankly, mostly spent on the commerce clause. Let's just be fair. Plenty of law schools then have a separate class in later years dedicated to like, you know, we might have a class in the first amendment. So that's entirely possible. And given that they are talking about powers V hardwick, which is a real case to the movies credit. And they do describe the case correctly. It could very well be a course on, you know, civil rights law dealing with the 14th amendment and.

11:22And the bill of rights nonetheless, it was odd. Yeah, I think the movie says that she like she disappeared on Callahan for a week while she's drafting this theory and also missed some classes to draft the brief. So who done it in a show? If some obscure suspect unknown to the FBI and CIA and secret service and 10,000 police departments. I had one. Oh, which I have now discarded. You mean you skip class and ignore me for a week and now you're throwing it away. Let me see it. Don't laugh. It was a little curse of me to think that I could solve it. I don't know what this theory could possibly be that took this much writing. Like it seems like the theories of the government or not the oil company killed them to more favorable judges would be appointed.

12:23Right. Yeah. So it seems like you could write this this memo in a sentence. You could. And also why like at any one time there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of lawsuits involving environmental law working their way through the courts that very often involve large corporations. Especially ones that are just at the trial level. So why this particular lawsuit is never really explained. Other than you know the the attorney that that instituted the lawsuits died by suicide. That's what they want you to think. This movie is very all over stone pilled very yeah, you can spirituality. We're gonna have to do that movie at some point. Sorry. Go ahead. And you're going to kill me. I have my issues with JFK with the movie JFK are pretty long. But yeah, sure let's do that at some point. I watching this movie. I kept thinking this is what RFK thinks of himself. He thinks he's fighting and get some giant evil conspiracy or at least he portrays himself as thinking that he is fighting some shiny foods.

13:31Here's if you hear him talk about not just like medicine, but also how he talks about like his own family dramas. He believes that JFK and RFK's father RFK were assassinated by evil government forces that are covering it up to this day. Sure. Never mind the fact that he is very high up in the government currently. Presumably either has access to whatever is being covered up or like his friends with Donald Trump and could you know could get that whatever is being uncovered. Whatever is being covered up released relatively easily. Yeah, I mean we've got cash potential in charge of the FBI now. It's like come on. You both can go on a podcast and talk about this. Not to disparage our chosen hobby. The problem with conspiracy theories is no amount of evidence will disperse them. All right, moving on. The only other major legal issue I can think of is the threat of a FOIA that gets her these documents that she wants. But we don't actually see what we don't see the documents she's getting. And I don't really know if she like.

14:37If it let's assume this is a third year lawsuit so they're pretty competent. I still hadn't dealt with a FOIA or any of the state equivalents when I was a third year. I don't know if you guys have if you have any had any personal experience at that point. So I actually had because I did a clinic on civil rights law in partnership with the Center for Constitutional Rights. And they were representing a reporter who had done a bunch of FOIA requests concerning an assassination that happened in South America. And we were drafting a complaint to try and compel the military essentially to produce the records that were requested in the FOIA. That was the first complaint I ever drafted was the caption that the top of the case was so and so reporter versus secretary of the Air Force secretary of the Navy. It was interesting to draft that is actually very cool.

15:37Now I do all sorts of FOIA stuff. And let me tell you. Yeah, it's not a fast process. Like if it's like, okay, she puts in the request in like three months later. If it's a state level request, maybe she gets the records. If it's federal, I literally I filed a FOIA request with the Department of Justice in 2018. We got an answer in 2021 when none of those. None of the materials were relevant to us anymore. That's usually happened to me is I will file the FOIA or the state equivalent and the things you don't actually regularly do know actually what you're going to get. You're kind of hoping that the things this. So you know, if you're requesting like police camera footage of something is like, you get the response back. We weren't the ones there. Somebody else was maybe, but not us. It's like, I don't know. I got to figure out who else was there. Like sure. You're trying to hunt down like, oh, you know, requesting camera footage from, you know, what I think is the city department is like, actually, that was that was the state.

16:44You should have requested it from the state there. Yeah. Ideally, you sent out a bunch of things at once and something comes back useful. Right. Yeah. And all of the various FOIA statutes are written such a way that. Now, I don't want to say all almost all FOIA or open records, FOIA stands for Freedom of Information Act. I don't know if we mentioned that. They're written in such a way where the government is there's no strict deadline that the government has to meet to produce the records to you. There might be some indication that they have to respond within like 30 days or something like that. But very often they have like a two track process and, oh, your request is complex. So we are going to take as much time as we need. There are exceptions to that. Some states are like, you will get them in five days and they actually mean it, which is interesting. Have we talked about FOIA on the podcast before? I'm not sure we have. No, it is like a regular enough thing in attorney practice that maybe we should have, like we could have a sidebar on at some point.

17:46Quick and dirty is most government agencies have some obligation to disclose some of the things happening, even if it's not every, you know, they don't have to disclose every minute. Of their day. So you can request these things and sometimes there's a small fee or something or for me have to fill out. You know, if there's a car accident and it happened to in front of a, at an intersection with a red light camera, you can request from that state agency or that city agency. We want the footage. Hopefully chose that, you know, who was it fault? Sure. Yeah. And there can be privacy concerns. So if you request FOIA footage of a police camera, like a body cam, now they can argue against it sometimes. Usually they won't usually just black out the parts that are privacy concern. So sometimes like you will get police body cam footage and part of the screen is blacked out because that part of the screen has, you know, somebody social security number just written down somewhere or something. And they're, they're in my experience, they've been mostly pretty decent about giving you the footage that you need or the documents that you need, at least one of the state agencies.

18:52And just the things that are blacked out are for the most part things that you would agree that should be blacked out. It's on the handwriting for the police report they wrote down like a social security number or something. Sure. Okay, that part of the screen is blacked out so that way we're not giving somebody social security number out to someone. And sort of the same vein, something that's often exempt from FOIA or open record statutes is trade secrets. Because if you could just get companies trade secrets by asking for what they have to submit to the government, the companies wouldn't submit things to the government. Yeah. So that could, that could have impacted her whatever her request was here, depending on what exactly it was requesting. Yeah, and it seems like she was requesting records from the court case, which normally would be pretty, you know, for the most part open. Usually the only time you see like a case being sealed is of like a minor is involved, something like that. Those are the times that I run into it.

19:52You know, the just a minor and so it's not publicly available on the docket. I, yeah, this trade secrets would be the only thing that I could imagine it being blocked out for the other big one is national security. Yeah, I mean, you could try and make some sort of case for that in this instance, but the thing is like it's so vague that for all we know this is an oil, an oil well on a military base. We have no idea that it's, yeah, but it's so vague that anything could be the argument we just don't know. The director and John Grisham didn't really give us too much to work with. Yeah, no jumping back to law school for a second. At one point Darby and Grantham go to Georgetown law school to talk to some students that were interns at a law firm that represented this oil company. To try and identify Garcia, one of Grantham's informants or not informants sources.

20:53And they finagle by talking about the law firms payroll records needing to reconstruct the law firms payroll records because of a computer problem. Placement office, please. Hi, this is Susan Johnson. I'm a partner with white and blaze of a cheering town. We're having some trouble with our computers. We're trying to reconstruct some payroll records and the accounts have asked me to ask you for the names of your students that clerked to your last summer. Excuse me, I'm from white and blaze of it. You have something for me? Yeah. Thank you. Oh, would you sign for this, please? But Mike, I'm curious. How often are law students paid for their internships? Oh, and my firm, they actually are. See, and R's R as well. I guess my old firm probably didn't. They probably were just interns. Mike earned from, I know that they're paid. I know I was not paid for any of mine. Yeah. It's worth noting that up until 2016, the ABA prohibited law students from earning both credit for externships and getting paid at the same time.

22:04You couldn't do both. You could either get paid or get credit. Anyway, I found it interesting that they're, that they talked about payroll records because I don't know. Now, if they're a big, if they're a giant law firm representing oil companies, maybe they are paying for the top. Yeah, it seemed, it seemed like it was a like level of law firm. I don't know exactly what the equivalent would be, but it seemed like pepper Hamilton blank, grumb kind of vibes. Also, there's some mild hippo violation. She finds out about one of the environmental health issues. Well, Grantham gets that from a law student. Okay. Yeah. You're not a health care provider. So no, no, hippo. And then talks to the guy, the guy himself. So yeah, I mean, he's committing a fraud to convince the person. So I guess he, he's more likely to be the one at fault there than the, the provider. Yeah. Yeah. This wasn't like a legally heavy, maybe the one big other thing is like threats of violence against judges.

23:04Is a real thing that happens unfortunately to often somebody showed up at Brett Kavanaugh's house trying to kill him. Was that in 20, 22? And in 2020, judge Esther Salas, her son and her husband were killed by a gunman who appeared, had appeared before her and then Harvard anti-feminist screaming. It says apparently it is a thing that happens unfortunately. Like far too often we've too many guns. Yeah, I mean, it's certainly I don't, I don't know if any Supreme Court just as has ever been killed. No, no, I don't, I don't think anyone has been killed, but somebody did show up and it was in 2022. And armed man was arrested near Brett Kavanaugh's house after allegedly telling authorities he intended to kill Kavanaugh. Yeah, don't do that. Don't you? Yeah, don't me. Don't kill people. Period. Yeah, that's, I mean, our official policy is murderous. And I have a feeling that there, you know, there are plenty of threats against Supreme Court justices regularly. And probably plenty of arrests that are never really talked about.

24:06I think today a gubernatorial candidate was just attacked really. I hadn't seen that. I've been kind of disconnected today. Democratic Ohio gubernatorial candidate, Dr. Amy Acton was targeted in an attempted attack at the Canfield Fair near Youngstown. We're recording the September 6th, 226. An armed man lunged towards her knocking several people over before being detained. I don't have any, I don't have to many details on it, but like this just happened. Yeah, now I will say none of these are like deep conspiracies involving evil groups. These are generally unbalanced individuals. Like not, and I'm not the person to defend oil companies, fuck oil companies. But like it, it's just the people that tend to commit violence are deeply unstable people who want to commit violence. Not like the oil company is going to commit evil acts in other ways. You generally, I mean, as we've seen recently, you can just buy a Supreme Court justice of $500,000 RV and generally count to be in your pocket.

25:11Not all of them, just a special, special Supreme Court justice. Yeah. So let's talk about that, the Supreme Court goings on. Because I did like that, you know, the morning after the Supreme Court justices are killed, there's, you know, an advisor pulls the president out of the residence and into the, into the Oval Office to talk about, look, this is tragedy. You need to, you know, we need to address the nation. And also this is an opportunity to, you know, remake the court. That is a conversation that would happen. The political side of it may for, I don't know, the dignity of, you know, respect for the dead hold off for an hour or two. Also, what a terrible plan. If two Supreme Court justice, justice has died that quickly in dramatic fashion. Like people are going to notice. Like maybe, maybe do one. Yeah, maybe you just do one and like that would probably have a very significant impact for decades.

26:16Also, the controversy about the then president telling, I guess the district, or the, the attorney general not to look into something. Normally that would be a huge news story. We now live in a reality where that would make the news. No, our reality is now more absurd than this movie. Oh, the attorney general is doing doing with the president wants him to do. Right. Speaking of records and being redacted and things like that, the Epstein Foss. So, yeah, the conspiracy makes no sense. You've got this, Grantham's source, this lawyer saw essentially an email between a lawyer and someone else saying, yeah, this case is going to get to the Supreme Court in four years. We need to do something before that. This is a matter of the day that I found my desk. I'm going to trust you to do that.

27:17What you will. I'm almost remember Mono. He's a senior partner. It was dated September 28th. Just a wakefield in the red Sims. Advice client, research is complete. The bench will sit much softer if the old man is retired. The second retirement is a bit unusual, Jensen of all people. Advice further that the Pelican should arrive here in four years. Assuming how the factors. So, let's talk about how appeals actually happen and how vanishingly small the odds are that this case would be heard by the Supreme Court. Because what we know is this is just wrapped up at the trial level. A judge has entered an injunction preventing the construction of this pipeline. A ton has to happen in order for this to actually get to the Supreme Court.

28:18You're going to there. They talk about appealing it up to the fifth circuit. The fifth circuit, you'll, you know, you'll file your appeal. Then there are months where everyone's filing briefings before an or a argument is scheduled. And then after that or argument is scheduled, you have easily months could be closer to a year before they issue a decision in the case. And if either party doesn't like that decision, they can petition for on-bock review, which is a whole other thing where normally when you appeal, you have three judges. A circuit court has like two dozen judges sitting on it. Your case is heard by three of them selected basically at random. If you don't like their decision, the whole court can hear the case. And maybe they'll overturn it. Maybe they won't. If you don't like that decision, you can then petition the Supreme Court to hear your case.

29:20Now they in the movie, they kind of gloss over and make it sound like if you appeal it, like you just appeal it to the Supreme Court and it's heard by the Supreme Court. And that's not how it works. You petition the Supreme Court to hear your case. They pick like a hundred and change cases to hear in each Supreme Court term. They receive orders of magnitude more petitions than they actually grant. And the reasons that they grant those cases are either they're a major political question. There's disagreement among the lower courts as to what's going on. The circuit court just got it flatly wrong and the Supreme Court needs to fix it. Or four justices want to try and make new law. And I say four because there's something called the rule of four. There are nine justices on the Supreme Court. Obviously you need five to win a case. You need four to agree to take your case. So all of that would have to play out.

30:20I mean, it would be like four years before it got to the Supreme Court and all likelihood. But there is absolutely no guarantee that the Supreme Court would even take it up. And there is so much more cost effective stuff that you could do to win your case without going to the Supreme Court without offering justices, bringing in international assassins to take care of like. The whole thing was just so convoluted and absurd. The idea that Darby comes up with this theory and it gains any track like I did like I liked Calla Hand's description. It's interesting to see how her mind works because yeah, this is pretty out there. I'm going to be honest. If two Supreme Court justices died within a couple days of each other, the normal thing would be kids or your C theories. I think everybody would assume that it's something weird. Yes, you would assume that something weird would happen. But I don't think that something so like so far removed from the court. We see conspiracy theories when politicians die all the time.

31:21There's conspiracy theories about Lindsey Graham dying. As if it's mysterious that a man whose parents died in their 60s from heart disease died in his 70s or heart disease. Sure. Or Mitch McConnell. All the who I guess hasn't died yet. But you know, months of speculation about that that even involved the governor of his state. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. And then you don't know who you don't know who's going to replace them. Like yeah, especially in the 90s, there were a lot of judges that were picked. That didn't go the way the people that were selecting the thought. Also, politics change rapidly enough that you don't always know. You know, if you were a diehard Republican of 2006, the Republican party of 2026 is radically different. And maybe you went along with that, those changes or maybe it didn't. Sure. I don't know, Jeff, is there anything else you really wanted on this one? Two things. This is kind of this is a side issue. But at one point, Grant them is being followed and he runs through a protest outside the Supreme Court that is rather absurd.

32:30I don't know. Mike, have you ever have you ever been to a been to the Supreme Court? I've walked past. I've been to it. Not when it's in session or anything. Okay. Yeah. So I think actually there are two protests because at the start, it opens on a protest. And Denzel Washington is visiting one of the justices who is killed. And looking out over the protesters. And it is the weirdest amalgamation of there's a crowd of hundreds of people with. Program rights, program control, both sides of the abortion debate, all just kind of intermingled in one big crowd. And that is not how any of that works. At least now, I can't say for 1993, but first of all, people aren't just there on random days. People go in protest when a case that matters to them is being heard. And everyone has their own like space. The advocates for one side will have a podium in front of the court on, you know, the left and on the far right of the stairway up to the court will be another podium for the other side of the case.

33:34And the two groups are generally pretty separated and. This was just not what any of this looks like. Speaking of someone who has helped organize rallies outside the Supreme Court. Do you think that's what it looked like 20 plus years ago when this movie was made? I think in 1993, we're talking about. 30 years ago. Sure. I don't think it would be this. It would be different. Certainly, there's a lot that has changed thanks to 9-11 and things like that. But, you know, people who are organizing protests organize them on specific days for specific reasons. It's not just everybody outside the court on, you know, like a random day. It's just not how it works. I guess the other thing to touch on is law professors aren't supposed to have relations with their students. And that that that is a no-no. Now, it's not necessarily a legal no-no. It very well could be.

34:35But I didn't I didn't pull like two lanes policy from 1993. I did pull Rutgers' policy since we both went to Rutgers. And it's policy prohibits among other things. And I'm quoting here, consensual relationships in which one party is an academic supervisor, which is defined to include professors. And the other party is a graduate student, trainee, postdoctoral associate, or fellow, or clinical resident or fellow, and where one of several circumstances exists, which includes both the professor and the students are in the same academic program, discipline or department. So that would directly implicate Callahan in this situation. In the book. And I have not read the book. I'm just seeing some notes online that in the book, the relationship is even more extreme, or he's sort of more of an alcoholic slime ball. And this one, people seem to think of him fondly. He just happens to be dating students. Obviously, something we now view as not just as prohibited,

35:35but also immoral and for good reason. You have a powered balance there. Probably was fairly common in the 90s. Probably was pretty common, much later than that. But yes, something that is rightfully prohibited. I mean, I remember rumors of it happening at Rutgers while we were there. So yeah, I want, I won't go into details, but. Yes, yeah. So yeah, yeah. So it's rightfully something that's prohibited. Don't think there's any legal consequences, but was probably, you know, something that was frowned upon, but it totally normal in the 90s. Yeah, it could. So in the abstract, not talking about Callahan and Darby here, because they, you know, seem to have genuine infection for each other. And I'm not going to like dive into that. But you could, it could lead to a title nine problem where, where, where, maybe, okay, discrimination on the basis of gender. There. Yeah.

36:35So. All right. Jeff, what did you think of the movie? It was, I, and I was about to say I enjoyed it. I didn't regret the decision to watch it. I'll give it that much. It was better than I thought it was going to be based on my memory of the movie. It gets a few things right legally. So I'll give it a, I'll give it a plus, I'll give it a pass on the entertainment side. I mean, virtually anything with Stanley Tucci in it. I will. I just. Peak, Denzel Washington. Yeah, like a Julia Roberts. I mean, yeah. Yep. They're all like in their prime, like early 30s, just killing it. I think is it Anthony held the guy, Anthony held is the bad guy. He's also the ski, ski, mental health facility head in Science of the Lambs. I like him generally as a character actor. Anyway, it's, they mentioned an actual Supreme Court case, which is something. But I can't give it a pass on the lock.

37:39Because I mean, the whole basis of the movie is just ridiculous. It's not even a brief. So no. Yeah, yeah. So I agree. I didn't dislike this movie. I don't know when I will ever watch it again. It's not exactly what I expected. Because I didn't really, I guess I didn't know it takes. I didn't even realize it was going to be a John Grishon movie before I started watching it. But yeah, it gets the law. It's bad. It gets the law. I wouldn't put it in the category of like the worst things we've watched legally, but it's not good. So it thumbs up for entertainment, thumbs down for the law. Yeah. All right. Well, listeners, thank you for joining us for this discussion of the Pelican Brief. We will see you again in two weeks. Bye. Bye.

38:44The Natsuo Grand Jury is sponsored by Moorwa PLLC. The opinions expressed in the Natsuo Grand Jury are those of the host themselves and not of their respective employers. The theme music for the Natsuo Grand Jury is from Gustav Holtz, Jupiter, and is in the public domain. If you'd like to get in touch with us, if you want to suggest future movies, or even if you want to offer corrections, you can email us at Natsuo Grand Jury at gmail.com or message us on any of our social media accounts. The Natsuo Grand Jury is copyrighted in 2026. All rights reserved.