Presumed Innocent

Other mistake: Rusty's attorney challenges Dr Kumagai by pointing out that Caroline Polhemus' had had a tubal ligation, but the spermicide nonoxynol-9 was found in her body. Kumagai is caught off balance, totally flustered. In fact as an experienced medical examiner Kumagai would know that at that time nonoxynol-9 was thought to offer protection from HIV and was widely used by people at no risk of an unwanted pregnancy. He would have thrown this right back in the attorney's face.

Other mistake: When Harrison Ford returns to the crime scene to search for "evidence" we see blood stains on the carpet, which has been on the carpet for days. The blood is bright red and shows no signs of coagulation, but blood turns dark red when it coagulates after only a few hours.

Frank Scialdone

Other mistake: About halfway through, Rusty, his wife and another lawyer are in Raul Julia's office when Raul decides to light a large cigar and while doing so talk all the way through it, which is impossible - you can not talk and light a large cigar at the same time.

kh1616

Plot hole: They found seminal fluid left in Caroline Polhemus. Why didn't they subject it to DNA testing, which would have been a powerful indicator of Sabich's guilt? Fertility (or otherwise) has nothing to do with it - as well as non-motile sperm (which contain DNA anyway) the seminal fluid would contain discarded skin and blood calls in abundance. DNA testing was first used in a criminal case in 1985 and was in fairly common use by 1988.

More mistakes in Presumed Innocent

Rusty Sabich: The jury is going to remember Caroline tortured to death. They'll want someone to pay for the crime.

More quotes from Presumed Innocent

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.