Star Trek 60th: Measure of a Man Review

We are continuing our review of Star Trek episodes over the last 60 years with Star Trek The Next Generation episode, "The Measure of a Man."

Transcript

Setting The Stage: Trek And Law

Joshua Gilliland 0:02

Hello everyone. My name is Joshua Gillaland, one of the founding attorneys of the Legal Geeks. We are here continuing our celebration of the 60th anniversary of Star Trek. With me on this voyage to discuss the next generation classic Measure of a Man. Is Neil Chatterjee and Jordan Coopert. Friends, countrymen, guys, how are you each doing?

Neel Chatterjee 0:28

I'm doing great. I haven't been on in a while, Josh, so I'm absolutely thrilled to be here. It's uh fun times.

Joshua Gilliland 0:35

Indeed. And uh I again we interact on LinkedIn, so you're a very busy man. Jordan, how are you doing?

Jordon Huppert 0:44

Doing pretty well. Um, very excited to be here to talk about one of my favorite uh next generation episodes.

Courtroom Echoes From TOS

Joshua Gilliland 0:52

And a great courtroom episode in track, and so technically, I think the third. Uh so let's let's rock and roll with this. So beforehand, we were chatting about similarities to other courtroom episodes. So the original series had court martial. Before that, it had the cage, you know, the menagerie, which technically is Spock's court martial, which echoes then in the court martial episode. And some of that then echoes over into this, highlighting the similarities that somebody paid attention to trial procedure. Neil, what were some of the similarities that you noticed between the proceedings?

Neel Chatterjee 1:36

Well, I mean, the most obvious one, right, is when when the witness puts their hand on a you know a device that says everything about them. I mean, in the um in the original series it was a ball, uh, and now it's kind of like a flat iPad-like device. But the more subtle ones that I really liked is the um is that Captain Picard and uh the judge um uh in the case, LeVoi, um, they clearly had a romantic relationship before, and it was during a time when she was prosecuting him for uh a potential court-martial proceeding. And those facts, even though it's different characters, are exactly the same as what happens in the court court-martial proceeding. And just throughout the whole episode, there are these little references here and there that if you remember the court-martial episode, it kind of harkens back uh to what happens there.

Fundamental Rights And Due Process

Joshua Gilliland 2:35

Yeah, and which is again good attention to detail. Somebody's paying attention. You know, this episode was written by a lawyer who actually did research on how a court martial would happen on a ship, with what the role the captain would play, the role that uh the first officer would play. So, again, there's lots of things that echo true to make this like a good proceeding. But throughout this uh episode, we have the question of like what are fundamental rights? And because we have data you know, gets orders to be dissected, and it's one thing to be in the military and asked to go out and do something dangerous, it's another thing to be voluntold to go to do an experiment that could kill you. That's that's different. So we get issues of fundamental rights and due process, and let's hit those and and get into then the trial issues. So Jordan, you're a defense been a defense attorney. What are fundamental rights for for those unfamiliar?

Jordon Huppert 3:46

I suppose that it's in its core term, they are rights that everyone has under the law that the government can't just take away from you without some kind of due process. Um so you know, I think anybody who's ever seen a police procedural show has the Miranda rights at least once or twice read in that show. You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney. If you can't afford an attorney, they'll appoint an attorney to you. Um things like that. The government can't just come in and search your house, they can't seize your property, um, you know, all the good time things that you have to enjoy as a citizen.

Joshua Gilliland 4:32

Neel, uh your thoughts.

Neel Chatterjee 4:36

Yeah, so well, I mean, there's there's plenty of fundamental rights, but I think the interesting issue here is who gets those rights? Like um, my dogs that just came into my uh my my little home office here, they don't have First Amendment rights. They like to exercise them when the Amazon guy comes to the door, but at the end of the day, they don't have First Amendment rights, they don't have to be mirandized when they're in trouble. Um, none of those things. And so, you know, if we if we turn it back to measure of a man, I think the key word there is man. Is he human or not, as opposed to is he some sentient life form? And if he is something that approximates a human, then he should get some fundamental rights before they just take them apart.

Picard Fights For A Hearing

Joshua Gilliland 5:28

And again, this episode hits on who gets those rights, which is as we look at the 250th anniversary of our founding, not the 250th anniversary of the constitution, like those are big issues. We hold these rights to be self-evident, that you know, we don't like the Star Chamber, we don't like people disappearing in the middle of the night, we don't like the British shooting people at Bunker Hill. Like, those are all things that upset you know our ancestors and the founding of this country. And it's a good thing to talk about today as we look at this episode of what are those fundamental rights? Because data now the question is what is human? And we we that's where the cross-examination comes in, but again, it goes to the due process issue. Now, data doesn't automatically get a hearing. Would either of you like to address you know the fact Picard had to go to bat to make sure he had the right to say, I don't want to do this?

Neel Chatterjee 6:39

Jordan, do you want to go for it first? I'm happy to.

Jordon Huppert 6:41

Sure. I mean, I think this is one of the at least in my memory, and it's been a long time since I've done an end-to-end rewatch of Next Generation, but this is one of the first times you see Picard as like the real caring captain about you know, my crew and this is my officer, and I'm not gonna let you just take him away for for nothing. And it is really uh just kind of one of the early inspiring Picard bits where he's in uh the the JAG office raisin hell about how data has rights. And if as you um if you uh stick with the the JAG officer whose name I don't remember, but she says something at the beginning about fine, data's a toaster, um which is an interesting place to start. But Picard has to go in and and fight that out just to get a hearing on whether or not he has rights, which I suppose if you think about it from a a step back point if I had to go in and get a hearing about whether or not my uh my dog had rights, that would be an interesting place to start.

Slavery Analogy And Personhood

Speaker 8:09

Yeah, I I I I think it's really interesting, Josh, because the way the episode starts, right, is is the JAG officer says, well, he can just quit. He

Neel Chatterjee 8:21

can just quit Starfleet, and then he's not going to be subject to any of these rules, wouldn't be dissected. And it kind of is, I mean, it's very much like normal litigation or trial, where you're like, oh, I've come up with this clever solution to solve a problem. And then, you know, data says, I'm resigning, I'm not going to be one anymore. And then all of a sudden they come back and they say, You can't quit. You're a thing, you're not a person, and only people can quit. And you know, you kind of have these unpredictable things where for whatever strategy one lawyer develops, it then gets backfires or has to go in a different direction because someone else pushes back with another creative argument.

Joshua Gilliland 9:02

Yeah, hence the art of lawyering. Uh, but when you talk about, you know, seek out new life, new civilizations. Again, that's part of the theme of this of there's that new life. You know, are you how are who are you to say it's alive or not? Which again, like our country has an ugly history with that multiple times. So it's yeah, so again, all bad, not good.

Neel Chatterjee 9:30

Well, well, I mean, that's kind of the most interesting part of the episode. It's kind of the aha moment for Picard is when he's sitting and talking to Gyman. And Gynan kind of analogizes it to you know, slavery and how you're basically, if you were to make a thousand datas, you'd be creating a new life form and a race that was going to be something less than normal humans. And uh it's kind of your really moving kind of moment when that happens, and then it gets obviously brought into the trial. Yeah.

Jordon Huppert 10:02

Talk about taking the other side's best argument to to make your own. I mean Maddox from the beginning is saying, like, wouldn't it be great if every starship had a data?

Joshua Gilliland 10:16

Yeah.

Jordon Huppert 10:17

Okay, would it?

Riker’s Role And Conflict Questions

Joshua Gilliland 10:20

Yeah, it's good good. Um we should all have someone who's good at math. Like I was doing Scout stuff today. It's like having someone who's good at using the hand sander or planning how to plot a course, or someone who's a good cook, like those are all things that are valuable skill sets, but you can't manufacture them. You know, you want a people to be. I like math, I like navigation, I like doing that. Yeah, it's important that everyone, if if again, if you're doing boating, you know those things. Uh, but people are gonna develop specialties. And what's Data specialty? Well, science guy, engineer guy, yeah, very strong guy, yeah, good very good wingman, you know, like very someone you're gonna he is super cool and wants to hang out with his cat and learn how to paint and and other human qualities. So, yeah, again, the idea of like what is humanity uh is a big one that uh echoes throughout all of track. So we we have those fundamental rights, we have a battle to have due process, which again, core of our system, you're not supposed to take someone's life, liberty without some form of due process of law. And again, what kind of process varies depending on the issue? Like the dog does have some rights.

Speaker 11:55

Absolutely, and there's criminal statutes that protect them. And you know, now there are some states that say um a dog is considered a member of the family, um, you know, but they're different rights than we have, right?

Joshua Gilliland 12:10

Yeah, they're protected, you know, and the society values your pet, whether it's a dog, cat, parakeet, whatever, you know, you want to make sure that there's protections for those.

Neel Chatterjee 12:23

And did just uh I don't mean to change the topic a little bit, Josh, but when you watched the episode, did you sit there thinking, what does Q think about all this? I did not you know, his whole thing is the trial of humanity, right? Like it's that's the whole thing, and then here we actually have a subset of that exact issue going on. I was just the whole time I was watching, I rewatched it this morning, and I was like, what does Q think about this?

Jordon Huppert 12:52

Like, you know, that's an interesting point.

Joshua Gilliland 12:55

Well, then like Q's trial of humanity, Q was the prosecutor and the judge, which we don't do. Uh, that's not okay on all kinds of levels. Uh uh, but it's like, well, dude, like data has counsel, like there's an impartial judge, and we're discussing his rights, which was way more due process than Cube was willing to give and encounter at Far Point or uh all good things. So so yeah. Now we we have some nitty-gritty legal issues that that come up. So uh and we've all started identifying them. So one that we've talked about at cons was did Riker have a conflict of interest in prosecuting data? And uh you do need like the waiver issue addressed, but you know, that's also kind of the job of the first officer, like in those types of situations. It sucks. Like, he is not a happy camper, but he doesn't want a summary ruling against data either. So, like he has to so again, that would suck to be him in that position.

Neel Chatterjee 14:11

Uh yeah, um, but but but I mean oh go ahead, Jordan.

Jordon Huppert 14:15

Uh say I was really glad that they kind of address that at the end of the episode, where they're all having the celebration for data and his winning, and data goes and invites Riker to come join them and um says something like if you had refused to prosecute, the judge would have ruled against me, and in doing so, you saved me and injured yourself, and that's friendship.

Joshua Gilliland 14:42

Yeah, I would understand why Riker might want to be in the holodeck with a punching bag just because I would be upset in that type of situation.

Jordon Huppert 14:50

Yeah.

Joshua Gilliland 14:51

You know, I totally.

Speaker 14:52

But but I mean, you know, like the the the issue is is right, like I don't know if there's a conflict of interest for Riker. I mean, the the reality is is that sometimes you are asked to do things or you need to do things that you might not necessarily agree with in case it doesn't mean you're doing anything unethical, it might it doesn't mean that you're not following the law, but you know, you could have a detestable client who deserves representation nonetheless. Um, and you're still gonna put on, you know, you have a legal obligation to put on a forceful defense for that.

Ethics, Discretion, And Hard Cases

Joshua Gilliland 15:28

Yeah. The duty of loyalty in this case to the state, I think you could the prosecutor can't just throw the game. Like that's that's a no-no. Like they they they have to do their due diligence uh as well.

Jordon Huppert 15:43

Well, the most interesting thing is it's non-lawyers, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If a prosecutor has a case they just flat don't believe in, they also have a duty not to go forward with it. But right there's not really in that didn't have that choice.

Joshua Gilliland 16:00

So there's a a former magistrate judge that I know that you know in the first round of of Trump prosecu you know prosecutions and and deportations, made the comment of there's nothing like hitting the weakest the hardest. And like he he was not happy, and neither were you know the you know the US attorneys tasked with doing things that they didn't like doing, even though it complied with the law. Uh, but they were like, This, I don't like this at all. And there's a lot to be said for that. Um, or if there's like mandatory sentencing for, you know, like a like a you know, let's just say a marijuana prosecution, you know, something that could be illegal federal but uh uh uh legal California or Oregon, that you know, it's like I don't like doing this as the you know U.S. attorney, but like it's it's the law still.

Neel Chatterjee 17:00

Yeah, well, I mean, in California state, it's it is a crime to steal a shopping cart from a grocery store. That's actually an actual criminal, it's in the business professions code, but it's a criminal act. And there are some jurisdictions around the state of California that regularly go after homeless people or unhoused people who have shopping carts that they took from whatever grocery stores and things. And it's like, okay, you know, they may not have the discretion because their supervisors are telling them they gotta do it, but you know, it's hard to sleep at night when you're asked to do that kind of stuff, right? And it's just like, I mean, you know, you know, just like here where you know you're being asked to prosecute someone that's your friend. And also, I think part of this also plays into the fact that there wasn't anyone to do it, you know, like that that was a hugely material issue in the case.

Joshua Gilliland 17:56

Yeah, it raises you know the question, again, it's traumatic storytelling, you know. But there's been I've seen you know the YouTube comedy video of the enterprise jag officer upset about not participating. And this and the guy, the guy keeps ordering alcohol from the replicator, like it's very well done uh and very humorous. But again, it's like you guys are out of jags, like how's you got a crew of a thousand, you have the 1980s historian, you don't have any lawyers on board. That's shocking. So, but again, it's not exciting storytelling of like here's our Jag department on the Enterprise D. Uh however, if if anyone's open to ideas, we all three of us are available for that. Uh we would all tag in moment's notice and go to Vancouver. So uh not even that far drive for me. No, uh, or excuse me, Vancouver. It's um uh or are they more eastern Canada now? Uh anyway.

Jordon Huppert 19:02

I don't care, I'll get there.

Evidence: Preservation And Presentation

Joshua Gilliland 19:04

Yeah, it's uh we'll all book a flight to Canada for filming. Uh but let's get into some of the other issues. So we have a preservation of evidence issue that one of you identified. Could one of you take us through that?

Jordon Huppert 19:20

I think that was me, and I think it was a typo that should have said presentation instead of preservation.

Joshua Gilliland 19:25

Uh thing I need to say.

Jordon Huppert 19:26

The typo is a good I mean the typo is right. There is a preservation of evidence issue. Um data is evidence. I mean they enter. And again, I hadn't thought this through because it's the typo, but how do you preserve the evidence of data? Like if you were gonna appeal the decision, does data not get his arm back?

Speaker 19:55

Well that that's it. Like, you know, there's this whole body of law about preservation of evidence when you have to do destructive testing on something. And you know, how do you because you have to be able to replicate the activity, and if it's destroyed, you you know, you can't tell what the state of it was at the time of the whatever the wrongful act or whatever the challenged act is. Um, here, I mean, he does put the arm right back on because when Picard's examining him, you know, he appears to have the full faculty of it. Um I think the other issue is when Riker turns him off, like I don't know what kind of memory loss there is when that happens.

Joshua Gilliland 20:34

But also just battery. It's uh the attorney's not supposed to touch the witness, like that's just that's a faux pas.

Neel Chatterjee 20:45

Uh very dramatic, but like you don't get to go up and you know nerve pinch the witness like that's but going but but but going to Jordan's point on presentation of evidence, like you know, I I the whole time I had court-martial in my mind um and as I was watching this because a real shaw, when she cross-examines Spock, she does what I think is a classic cross-examination. Yes, no, controlling the witness, putting them back on, and no matter how much they fight. In this instance, I'm not sure that I saw the same level of discipline on the direct and the cross-examinations, but I don't know what Jordan thinks.

Cross-Exams, Strategy, And Mistakes

Jordon Huppert 21:27

Um no, I think you're right. There wasn't the same kind of controlling yes-no closed-ended questions that we saw, but it ended up being very effective. I agree with that. From a lawyer standpoint, it is incredibly difficult to do. Yeah. Like I think if anybody's watching this in law school thinking this is how you should. Litigate witnesses, it's not. Um 99% of the time your your cross-examination is going to be something along the lines of you know, Mr. Maddox, you don't you're not sure that you can bring data back, right? Yes, I'm not sure. Next question.

Neel Chatterjee 22:18

Yeah, well, and you don't get to argue your case in the middle of the examination, which you know you see in a lot of dramas of various sorts. And and in this case, you're you're seeing that. You know, I was I I gave it a pass because it wasn't lawyers, it was it was lay people that were actually doing the presentation of the evidence.

Jordon Huppert 22:35

Yeah, yeah. They do go right from questions to Picard's argument kind of nebulously.

Neel Chatterjee 22:43

Yeah, because they don't have opening statements and closing arguments, right? It's just all mixed up.

unknown 22:48

Yeah.

Jordon Huppert 22:48

I thought they had opening statements.

Joshua Gilliland 22:51

Yeah.

Jordon Huppert 22:51

I thought they waved. Anyway. Maybe they waved. Anywho, which is also a bad plan.

Joshua Gilliland 22:56

Yeah, again, you put out your roadmap, tell the you know, trier effect what you're going to do and how you're going to do it, and then do it. Uh, when I coached high school mock trial or law students, when we've done any of our you know, mock trials at Comic Fest. Now, the issue is save it for closing. Like, don't make a if the witness is there, the witness can respond. The witness might torpedo what you just said, and you don't want to end up with egg on your face like that because you want to miss save it for closing. You know, there is there are mic drop moments you can make on a cross and then shut up and sit down so you don't ruin it.

Jordon Huppert 23:41

Totally. There's a federal judge in Oregon who I I won't name by name, but has a binder full of what they call one question too many examples and has a wonderful presentation on it, and it is just devastating to listen to.

Joshua Gilliland 23:59

I um I was a witness recently. Um I worked for there was a question that from a site inspection that happened, and so I went in to testify, and it was very different being in the witness chair as opposed to counsel table. And the opposing attorney on my cross asked, We've never met before, correct? And my response was, we've met twice. I defended my client's depositions at your office, and I mean I heard jurors snicker. Um, but again, again, it highlights you don't ask the question that you don't know the answer to. And I mean, I could have just said, no, but I made a point.

Jordon Huppert 24:50

But you also don't want to lie under oath.

Joshua Gilliland 24:53

No, it's wasn't gonna do that either. Because you know, I take this seriously. Like this is what we do. Um, but again, he made a boo-boo.

Jordon Huppert 25:04

Uh yeah, it's a bad start.

Joshua Gilliland 25:06

Yeah, very bad start.

Neel Chatterjee 25:08

Uh I I was cross-examining a witness once, uh, and uh and she had said that a letter didn't exist. And uh I put the letter in front of her, and she's like, I don't I don't know who this person is that signed it. And I'm like, You don't know who that person is? And she says, No. I said, he's the person sitting right behind me that's your lawyer that just took your testimony. Whoops. We all heard him introduce himself to the jury.

Joshua Gilliland 25:36

Wow, yeah, you gotta avoid those mistakes. Uh I mean, it's one thing to go, I can't read the signature. That, you know, it's like I can't read that. I I can't read that. Fair. But dude, that's your lawyer. Like jurors, judges don't like that at all.

Neel Chatterjee 26:01

Yeah, that was bad. It was a bad look. Oh measure of a man.

Joshua Gilliland 26:05

Yeah. Uh right then. So does Dana have a right to to not incriminate himself? Uh Jordan, can you walk us through that?

Jordon Huppert 26:16

Sure. So you, as a you know, a person who might be on trial for something, have a general right not to take the witness stand and say, I did it, unless it's you know your choice. The prosecutor can't say, I call the defendant to the stand and I want to ask them all the kinds of questions under oath. It doesn't it doesn't work that way. Um when I was writing this and and thinking about it though, I'm not entirely sure that this would be a criminal situation. Yeah. Certainly data's data's testimony uh is not good for him, but in a a civil case, you don't have that same level of protection, right? I'm not a civil lawyer, so I I will throw that out to the room of them, but yeah.

Neel Chatterjee 27:12

Well, I'll Jordan, I'll I'll uh I'll I'll talk about that. I've had plenty of cases where my witnesses are asserting their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination in a civil proceeding. And in federal courts, uh the the jury can actually take a negative inference from it. Um which is you know, they they're they're allowed to take a negative inference from someone's decision not to testify on their own behalf and not present evidence. Um in state court in California, it's actually different. There's a there's a specific instruction that says you're not allowed to infer anything. But having done both criminal and civil cases, the really interesting thing is that when you're prosecuting or defending a criminal case, jurors are very comfortable with the concept of you know, this guy's not testifying or this woman isn't testifying because they have a constitutional right to not incriminate. When someone asserts those exact same rights in a civil proceeding, jurors get really pissed off at them. Um, and and and it's interesting because they're exercising the right in the exact same way, but in the two different cases, jurors who are not sophisticated people don't necessarily know burden of proof. They treat it differently. But I think in this one, Josh, like I I didn't think there was a right against uh uh incrimination for two reasons. One, they're in the military, and in a military proceeding, you don't necessarily have those rights. And two, to Jordan's point, I'm not sure this is a criminal proceeding. This is uh, you know, it's it it it it's it's more like a civil case or um you know, or like I've seen cases where people have mental fitness examinations and things like that.

Data’s Memories As Digital Evidence

Joshua Gilliland 28:58

The going to both a preservation of evidence and a presentation of evidence issue for data, is he has data, you know, and again, the e-discovery guy, there's electronically stored information in in that noggin, and it crosses into like a physical exam to get it. So there's some weird bound-up issues that if you do try to get, you know, what's all of his memory about specific events? It possibly could be self-authenticating under the federal rules of evidence, which again would be weird. Haven't done all the analysis on it, but it potentially could be. To how do you present that? Is it just ones and zeros, or is it like visual? Is it like a red light camera? Do you have sound? Like, how does how is that retained and then how is it exported out into a reasonably usable form? And again, could the human mind understand it if it was just data, or if it's again full-on trial presentation that you're showing this is what he saw on day X?

Neel Chatterjee 30:18

Well, well, like if you're if you're you know, I the one of the most compelling parts of the show, right, is when um when Picard puts um the little device in front of data that pulls up Tasha, right? And asks him the questions. And you know, the response on that for what you're getting at is is well, you know, data isn't really exercising love in the way humans do love. Here's the internal mechanical processes that are going on to create that sense that he has feelings when he in fact does not. And you could give that kind of technical response getting it that exact sort of information that you're talking about.

Jordon Huppert 30:55

Well, then and then of course the biologist side of me says you can pretty much do that with the human brain, too.

Joshua Gilliland 31:02

You can see which parts of it are firing and but that would still take a you know a type of court order to get that, because you don't just get a physical exam. But Data's response to Tasha is very human because there's superhuman, yeah. It's it's like I don't want to talk about it because I promised I wouldn't. And it's Picard who probably figured it out because he's the captain. Uh, but being hearing him go, like, yeah, Tasha wouldn't mind under the circumstances. Let's like again, very human, and which again is part of the brilliance of this for the guy who's not human to look human. Like we've seen this before with Spock, with the guy with no emotions represents the best of humanity. Got it, cool. And they have that echo here as a recurring motif.

Empathy, Poker, And EQ

Neel Chatterjee 31:55

I I was hoping, um, you know, I was hoping that there would be a little bit of examination of data on the poker game. Because he gave like a really critical admission during the poker game. He's read every single book

Speaker 32:10

and every single thing there is about poker. But what he can't do is he can't read the social cues to know when someone's bluffing. And to me, that was like, you know, that was a gift from heaven if you're the prosecutor to say, look, you know, you are just ones and zeros because you don't have the capacity for empathy and EQ, right? But then obviously Picard, you know, Picard negates that in a whole variety of ways.

Joshua Gilliland 32:37

Yeah, he has EQ, it's just a little different, but he has EQ and has friends and cares about people, and he sh technically shouldn't. You know, does does your iPhone love you?

Jordon Huppert 32:53

Chat GPT loves me.

Joshua Gilliland 32:55

Yeah, it's because it's telling you what you want to hear. I know, yeah. Sure, talk to it for legal advice. What could go wrong?

Jordon Huppert 33:06

Uh just just saying reasonably certain my phone spends most of its time trying to figure out how to sell me things.

Joshua Gilliland 33:11

I don't think that's don't confuse that. Uh it doesn't really know you. But uh we have going back to the court proceeding, stipulating to the record about someone's service uh awards and recognitions and commendations. And we also had that with Kirk in court martial of no, I want to hear him. Like, we're not gonna stipulate this guy's an expert. Okay, can we just stipulate? No, I'm gonna voidier and prove how smart he is just I want everyone in the room to believe this dude. And why is the machine going out and saving people? Why is the machine going out and earning all of these recognitions if it's not brave?

Neel Chatterjee 34:03

Yeah, I mean, stipulations. I mean, when you stipulate things, you try and get the other side to stipulate away the stuff that could have the greatest emotional benefit for that, right? Because you you really want to, you know, you want to take that away from them if you can. And you know, it rarely works, but doesn't harm a trial.

Joshua Gilliland 34:20

Yeah, and I mean it's one thing to stipulate to say authentication. There's there's some there are the like ministerial things, it's like, oh, we don't need to go into that. But this is well, no, let's go into it. Because like if we're talking about whether or not he deserves rights, let's talk about all the stuff that he's been recognized for in saving the day, or where he came in in his class. So uh Jordan, you you shared a courtroom as a crucible speech, which does make a uh I think appearance in Academy. No, no, that's from Drumhead. Sorry, different, different motif later, but share the crucible.

Stipulations And Service Record

Jordon Huppert 35:02

Oh, I just I love this speech at the end of Picard's um we'll call it closings. A courtroom is a crucible wherein we burn away irrelevancy and we are left with the truth for all time. And I have absolutely used that speech in closing arguments in court. Um and it worked pretty well, and I think it works well here. It's just it is a great little soundbite of their whole kind of I don't know if I would call it the theme of their case, but it's a great little soundbite of the whole summation that Picard is trying to make. Is like I don't care that he's stronger than me. I don't care that his you know body works differently than mine, that his arm is detachable. None of that matters. What matters is, and it's the the ending bit of Picard's thing that Josh, I think you mentioned earlier, is Starfleet was founded to seek out new life. Well, there it sits. It's just that like you were saying, save your mic drop moments for closing, and that's your mic drop moment in this one.

Joshua Gilliland 36:12

Absolutely. Uh so as we look at this, this this episode's pushing 40 years old. I know Neil and I watched it when it came out. Jordan, you get a pass.

Jordon Huppert 36:25

Um sometime later.

Joshua Gilliland 36:26

Yeah, sometime later. We don't need to go into details, but Neil and I were there originally. Why does this hold up? What for for each of you? Why does this hold up?

Neel Chatterjee 36:39

I I think the study of humanity has been like a a part of filmmaking forever, right? Like, you know, you see it, you know, what is it? Um uh Space Odyssey, 2001 of Space Odyssey. We have How, right? We have the Terminator films, we have, you know, um uh even these more recent films where someone has an AI girlfriend or whatever, and you know, now it's making its way into our modern dialogue, right? There's actually case law about can AI own intellectual property rights or you know, things like that. And there's people litigating those issues around the world, and you know, these are things that were you know very, very hot button issues, and what is humanity, you know, then and that issue persists today.

Joshua Gilliland 37:29

Jordan, how about you?

The Courtroom As A Crucible

Jordon Huppert 37:31

Um I agree. I just I also think this uh is one of those episodes that goes to the very core of why I think Star Trek has persisted. It's not it's an episode about self-discovery. Um it's not, you know, the kind of running-gunning Star Trek episode. There's not a big evil villain to fight, but it is an episode that's full of tension and drama, but it is all introspective. You know, is data a person? Are are we going to expand our definition of personhood as we move out into the stars and take on this kind of exploration uh role? And that's to me one of the things that Star Trek has always been about is you know, are we going to treat other beings and other races well?

Neel Chatterjee 38:30

Well, and you even see that in Starfleet Academy now, right? Um I forget her name, but there's that character that's you know essentially, you know, an artificial being.

Jordon Huppert 38:39

Sam. Sam.

Neel Chatterjee 38:41

Sam. And uh, you know, and and it's coming up again. And then, you know, Sam's, you know, quote unquote parent is the doctor, which is a whole fascinating kind of study in humanity in and of itself. And they have that whole exercise about her discovering herself a couple episodes ago, right?

Why The Story Still Resonates

Joshua Gilliland 38:59

The I think back to the motion picture. I was five. Uh deep film for a five-year-old, but hey, dad took me. And and it, you know, the the closing line to it is the human adventure is just beginning. Like Trek has hit that theme hard for 60 years. It's it's what the show is, because it's a great reflection on like what do we want to be? Um, it's also nice to have not all AI is scary bad. You know, the you have AI learning the best of humanity instead and aspiring to be good. So it doesn't have to be doom and gloom. It could be, I want to learn how to paint. Uh you know, I want to be able to go to the bar that Cisco went to.

Jordon Huppert 39:50

Like I want to be more human, right? At the end of the day.

Representation And Women In JAG

Joshua Gilliland 39:54

Yeah. I can't have a taco, but I would like to. Like that kind of just like that's nice. Like it's it highlights aspirational tones for the unemotional character that's again full-on Pinocchio of wanting to be a real boy. And good, more of that, because this is one of those, I would say, top 10 episodes of track. Oh, yeah, people go to, you know, historically, people go to this at legal, or excuse me, not necessarily legal events, at cons, and we talk about track, there will be questions about measure of a man at guaranteed, like this is what they expect. Uh, so so again, they hit the uh issues, they hit it well. It's well acted, it's well written. You know, they only you know if we look at uh since it is International Women's Day as we record this, you know, we should mention the importance of women in the practice of law because when court martial came out, only 2% of attorneys were women. When this one came out, I think it was like 20%. Like, you know, the 80s weren't great on that, but they were getting better after Sandra Day O'Connor was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. So again, numbers keep going up, and like again, there's we can save that for another time because we're all dudes. So having actual actual representation, but it's so important.

Neel Chatterjee 41:33

But but Josh, I actually have a graphic of this that I made a while ago where I go through all the different Star Trek series and the growth of uh women as lawyers in you know over time in the various Star Trek series and and what happens to society. But one of the things that I didn't know, but I learned when I put together the graphic is for each incremental um like series, the woman lawyer has a higher rank. Yes, and I think that's a really, really cool, you know.

Closing Thanks And Sign‑Off

Joshua Gilliland 42:07

Um by the time of Deep Space Nine rules of engagement, the judge is an admiral that's uh a female Vulcan, and it's like, yes, good, like like real life. Uh so like some of the stats that I have. So in 1989, it was 23 percent of uh attorneys were women. 1996 for Admiral Talara uh it was 27. And 2020 it was 37.4 percent. I don't know what the current numbers are, but we can revisit that because you know this issue is far from settled uh and and always important. So so the yeah, a lot there. Good story. And uh I want to thank you both for your time. I I know we'll be back because we'll uh we're nerds that can talk about trek for hours on end because we have there's uh there's lots of evidence to back up that statement of yep, we'll talk about Trek. You know, and it's what we do, it makes us happy. Uh so gentlemen, thank you both for your time and your love of track, and for everyone tuning in tonight. Thank you. Stay safe, stay healthy, and of course, stay geeky.