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My Cousin Vinny
While driving through Alabama, New York college students Bill Gambini and Stan Rothenstein stop at a convenience store, where Bill absentmindedly pockets a can of tuna. After they leave, the store clerk is found robbed and murdered, and the boys are pulled over and arrested. At the police station, Bill assumes he has been caught shoplifting and confesses, leading to his being charged with murder and Stan as an accessory. Unable to afford a private attorney, Bill calls on his cousin, Vinny Gambini, a personal injury lawyer from Brooklyn, who agrees to take the case. Unbeknownst to them, Vinny has only just passed the bar after numerous failed attempts and has no trial experience. He travels to Alabama with his fiancée, Mona Lisa Vito.
Vinny convinces the trial judge, Chamberlain Haller, that he is an experienced New York attorney practicing under the alias "Jerry Gallo" (later, "Jerry Callo"). Haller, however, repeatedly finds him in contempt for his attire, attitude, and lack of courtroom decorum, leading to several brief jail sentences. The prosecuting district attorney, Jim Trotter III, presents a strong but circumstantial case, calling multiple witnesses who implicate Bill and Stan in the murder. Vinny declines to cross-examine these witnesses during the preliminary hearing, alarming the defendants. Stan subsequently fires Vinny and retains the public defender, John Gibbons.
Vinny's inexperience leads him to attempt tricking Trotter into sharing evidence, until Lisa informs him that he can legally obtain it through discovery. She also encourages him to begin interviewing the witnesses, which he proceeds to do. Lisa grows frustrated with Vinny, reminding him of his promise to marry her once he wins his first case, and fearing that day may never come. At the same time, Vinny is eager to prove himself to his mentor, Judge Malloy, who persuaded him to pursue a career in law.
During the trial, Gibbons's nervousness and severe stutter undermine Stan's defense. Meanwhile, Vinny adopts an aggressive but perceptive questioning style that steadily discredits Trotter's witnesses. He uses his newfound knowledge of the cooking time of grits to show that one witness's timeline of the crime is inaccurate. He then challenges the others by questioning their ability to positively identify the suspects due to obstructions in their sightline and impaired vision. Impressed, Stan rehires Vinny to represent him.
The next day, Trotter calls a surprise witness, FBI analyst George Wilbur. Wilbur testifies that tire tracks at the crime scene match those of the boys' 1964 Buick Skylark, though Vinny gets him to admit the tires are among the most common in the United States. Haller then orders a lunch recess and denies Vinny's request for a full-day continuance to prepare a rebuttal. Exhausted from lack of sleep, strained by Haller's hostility, and fearing he will lose the case, Vinny lashes out at Lisa when she tries to help. Soon after, however, he realizes that one of her photographs, showing the tire marks at the scene, may help the case.
Vinny compels a reluctant Lisa to testify as an expert witness, drawing on her family background in auto repair and her encyclopedic knowledge of cars. Examining the photograph, Lisa explains that only the 1963 Pontiac Tempest, which resembles a Buick Skylark, could have made the tire tracks, due to its independent rear suspension and Positraction. Vinny recalls Wilbur to the stand, who confirms Lisa's testimony, simultaneously discrediting his own. The sheriff then testifies that, at Vinny's request, he identified two men fitting Bill's and Stan's description who were arrested in Georgia while driving a stolen Pontiac Tempest, and were carrying a gun matching the murder weapon. With the prosecution's case dismantled, Trotter moves to have all charges dismissed.
Bill, Stan, the sheriff, Trotter, and Judge Haller congratulate Vinny on his success. As he and Lisa drive away, she reveals that she persuaded Judge Malloy to vouch for Vinny's fictitious "Jerry Callo" résumé. The couple then resumes bickering over their long-delayed wedding plans.