The film Fracture, starring Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling, is about an engineer who shoots his wife because she was having an affair with a detective. Jennifer Crawford (Embeth Davidtz) and Detective Rob Nunally (Billy Burke) are unknowingly caught having an affair by Jennifer's husband, Theodore "Ted" Crawford. Crawford goes to the hotel where his wife and Nunally are staying and exchanges his gun for the officer's. When Jennifer returns home, Crawford shoots her in the face, seriously wounding her but not quite killing her. When the police arrive, Crawford specifically requests that Nunally be the one to enter. Crawford confesses to shooting his wife. The district attorney, Willy Beachum, is put on trial because he thinks this will be another easy victory for him. Beachum is an excellent prosecutor with a 97% conviction rate. This is his last week before taking a new job with Wooton and Simms. He is more interested in his new job as a corporate lawyer and his new love interest, Nikki Gardner (Rosamund Pike), who is also his new boss, in paying close attention to the details of Crawford's case. So, inevitably, some things go unnoticed. No one expects Crawford to come even close to winning because he confessed and is defending himself against a prosecutor who has an excellent record. He surprises everyone at the trial by revealing that the officer who arrested him was having an affair with his wife and forced him to confess. After this new information comes out, the confession is no longer valid. Beachum now has no evidence against Crawford as the gun at the scene was not the one used to shoot Jennifer. Before the next hearing, Nunally tries to convince Beachum to let him hide another gun at Crawford's house. Beachum refuses this or... half a document... to be thrown away and cannot be used as evidence against the suspect. Crawford also used this to his advantage and says that Nunally got the confession out of him, this is extremely believable since Nunally went behind the table behind him in the courtroom after Crawford said he was fucking his wife. Since Nunally was with him at the time of both confessions, they could not use either of them. Nunally's presence meant that Crawford's confession was obtained using force, threats or intimidation. Works Cited Cole, G. F., Smith, C. E., & DeJong, C. (1996). Criminal Justice in America (7 ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub. Co..Hoblit, G. (Director). (2007). Fracture [movie]. United States: New Line Cinema. Self-representation. (n.d.). Law Justice. Retrieved March 30, 2014, from http://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-06/16-self-representation.html