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ScreenPrism sits down with former District Attorney Yifat Schnur, where we put How to Get Away with Murder (2014) on trial for how accurately it portrays criminal defense practice.

ScreenPrism (SP): Annalise Keating says to her entire classroom regarding coaxing witnesses, “You don’t ask for the truth, you pound it out of them. Be relentless until you get the answer you want.” How well does this represent the mindset of criminal defense attorneys, if at all?

Yifat Schnur (YS): That’s a tough question, and one that I definitely can’t answer for all criminal defense attorneys. There’s a very fine line between what you do and don’t want to know. On one hand, you need to know as much as possible in order to best defend your client. If something you haven’t prepared for comes up in court, it can ruin your whole defense. On the other hand, if a client flat out admits to you “I did it,” then you have a legal obligation to report that to authorities. That balancing act has made me very astute when it comes to reading facial expressions and understanding when my client is telling the truth.

SP: In Season 1, Episode 2, the defense’s strategy for proving the innocence of Keating’s client is based off of demonstrating that the accused, Max St. Vincent, is well versed in the humane killing of animals due to his hunting education, and therefore would not have been responsible for the brutal and inefficient killing of his wife. To show this, Annalise has one of her legal associates accompany St. Vincent to the witness stand where he demonstrates for the courtroom how he would efficiently and humanely kill a person. Would this type of demonstration be allowed in court? Is it a sound legal strategy?

YS: Well in terms of courtroom etiquette, there is nothing strictly prohibiting that from happening in court, at that point it’s up to the judge. That being said, I highly doubt a judge would allow an accused murderer demonstrate his preferred means of killing in court. That’s also a very weak and illogical defense. Why does the fact that he can kill animals humanely mean that he can’t kill humans violently? What’s to say that he wouldn’t be swept up in the emotion of the domestic disturbance? The whole scenario seems quite surreal and unlikely, but obviously courtroom dramas try and emphasize the most exciting aspects of the job while downplaying the boredom and tediousness that also comes with it.

SP: In the second episode, Criminal Defense attorney Annalise Keating takes her newly hired law students to the scene of a crime that she has asked to be preserved until after the trial. Her client, the accused husband of the deceased, has one of the students lie on the bed while he acts out how the murder supposedly happened in some convoluted way of demonstrating how he, the husband, could not have been the murderer. Is any aspect of this feasible, from the preservation of the crime scene at the behest of the defense attorney, to having a law student lay on a bed covered with crusted blood?

YS: It’s possible for that to happen, the question is “Is it likely?” And the answer to that is a resounding no. I once worked on a case in Brooklyn where a drug deal went bad and someone was shot and killed in an apartment elevator. By the time the police arrived, the building’s superintendent had cleaned up all the blood, bleached the place completely, and tossed everything into garbage bags. You can ask for a crime scene to be preserved, but there’s no way to ensure that whoever is presiding over it adheres to your wishes. Also, the time between when a murder occurs, a defendant is accused, and lawyers are assigned to the case can be varied and massive. Unless the scene is highly political/high profile, there is no guarantee whatsoever that a crime scene is kept intact.

SP: Defense attorney Annalise Keating and her law firm manage to work through approximately a case a week. The pace with which they put cases to bed is rapid. Do single week cases like this happen, and, if they do, do they happen as often as depicted in How to Get Away with Murder?

YS: No, no, no, no, no way is that ever happening. With cases like the ones you’ve been describing, where witnesses need to be called, Jury’s need to be assembled, lawyers need time to create defenses and prosecutions, there is no chance these cases are being resolved in a week. The minimum time for cases as serious and complex as those are around a year. The only cases that get resolved in a day are really minor things like possession of small quantities of drugs, or jumping a turnstile. Even then, that’s only if the accused has no criminal record and he agrees to community service.

Yifat Schnur is a graduate of Brooklyn Law School and a former Assistant District Attorney. While serving as a Criminal Prosecutor in Kings County, Yifat handled a variety of criminal matters including, fraud and forgery, assaults, weapons, narcotics, gangs, sex crimes and DUI’s. Currently, Yifat’s law firm practices in criminal defense, immigration law and employment and labor law. Yifat is admitted to the bar in both New York and New Jersey.

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