And that's precisely why juries are a big joke. A relic from a bygone era that should have been discarded. If he did this in my country, his silver tongue would have amounted to nothing in this situation.
Jury-"idk there's a lot of evidence against him, and he doesn't really have any proof regarding his alibi" Clay-"Lemme tell ya somethin brotha" Jury-"not guilty"
@@wisdomisgangster3113 He playing the race card, the poor card and the local card. I count at least 8 blacks out of the 12 jurors. It is Baltimore after all. They even reference this the next time they threaten to take Davis to court in Annapolis where the jury would be mostly upper-middle class whites that don't give a shit about Marge's Funeral Home and who definitely need to see some receipts.
@@aviricca5578 he does that's what he says when he helps carcetti out, "that it seems we'll both be in annapolis in a few years, be working closely together" basically with the subtext i did dirt for you here and if needs be you'll do dirt for me in annapolis clay was the gangsta with politics
Clay Davis is hilarious. He won't kill your family or anything brutal, but he'll con you, rip you off and bullshit you in any way he wants and get away with it smiling.
Clay Davis is a legend on this show. The man has a platinum tongue, not silver, but platinum.. brilliant how he played into the jury. The way he finessed Stringer, was exceptional- to the point he wanted Clay Davis hit. Lol
Clay was brilliant especially hooking the Jury with his Survivor reference, Also turning back on the prosecutor intimating he grew up middle class and does not have any connection with poor people in Baltimore. Then amazingly he goes and says he is going to do the same thing he is in court for now over again. Prosecutor Bond brought a knife to a gunfight and Clay Davis brought a M-60.
It's really well done, having him hook them in with TV references - it's just hard for me to imagine someone getting off the hook when they're staring down that cement of a case
It's easy to convince the people that always vote for you to take your side. The Feds would laugh at Clay Davis right before they announce his sentence.
@@vicshephard9231 That's exactly why the case should've gone to the Feds. Bond keeping it a local case exemplifies everything wrong with Baltimore in The Wire: he just wanted to make a name for himself instead of doing what was right.
This is what happens when the facts don't matter. They had Clay dead to rights on the facts of the case! Cult of personality won over. Collectively, people are stupid.
1:24 Probably my favorite part of a great and hilarious scene is when Davis derisively refers to Bond as "Prosecutor O-bond-a." The fifth season of The Wire was made in 2007, and began airing in January 2008. At that time, it was generally understood that Barack Obama -- of Highland Park, Chicago, even more highfalutin than Roland Park near Baltimore -- was an upper-class black candidate whose base was among well-off white liberals. The great majority of black people, especially working-class and poor black people, favored Clinton. That only changed after the Iowa caucuses in January 2008.
FRANK SOBOTKA (another Clay Davis victim) said it best when he said.... "Ya know what the problem is Brucie... we used to make shit in this country. BUILD shit. Now we just stick our hand in the next guy's pocket." Frank Sobotka, a dying breed of American men. (hands down the most tragic character of the series)
Yeah, that must suck. Once upon a time, only the private unions were ripping off business owners. Now everyone on the Left is doing it, just to pay off the public sector unions.. And with no one making things in the US, there's practically nothing left for our local socialists to steal anymore. It's sad.
This man's boss music sounds like non-threatening smooth R&B. Your health bar never lowers the fight. The crowd just applauds and you leave frustrated and ashamed.
This was funny how he managed to con the whole courtroom. He was among the guiltiest most selfish people on the whole show and he managed to make himself look like one of the worlds most benevolent selfless people in the world, lol.
Clay Davis was as slimy and corrupt as it gets--but you HAVE to give his character his due--MAN he knew how to work it and spit some SERIOUS political game. One slick SOB!!!
After all the police work they’ve done to prove his crime he gets away with it with some cheap populism...this fucking TV show is more realistic than real life itself
And what’s sad is that tryna bring him down trumped 22 dead bodies (good to know - Cedric Daniels) and it led to mcnulty pulling the shit he did with the serial killer to try and ultimately bring Marlo down.
absolute incredible actor tho. Just think how well he's convinced you of his character, and here convinces you that the character is a great liar and actor..... some next level shit.
Notice how he addresses the jury directly, adjusts his vernacular accordingly along with casual use of profanity, brilliantly manufacturers an "us vs. them" scenario (including his own lawyer in the "them"). He even references popular reality television to endear himself to the "common man" even further. And he IS Clay Davis...
I love how he says if they find him not guilty, and let him walk free, he's going to go right back to doing what he was doing (that is, being more crooked than a bedspring), and keep doing it until they 'truck him up to Mt Auburn'. He literally doublespoke his way into applause for being unapologetically corrupt. This is high art!
You could catch Clay Davis stealing your car, run up on him ready to throw hands and then he starts explaining himself. By the time he gets done talking he would’ve convinced you that you gave him the car.
*This was beautifully done. And it emphasizes the importance of semantics and understanding your audience. What Isiah Whitlock Jr. did here in presenting Clay Davis as the true conman that he is by using a range of emotions (laughter, sincerity, melancholy, hope, etc)...was credit to his acting abilities. Clay Davis is symptomatic of many corrupt senators who study their environment and know how to succeed in that environment. If Clay Davis could say whatever he wanted and be truthful, he would have said in his standard white voice (instead of the black vernacular he projected here): "Sheeeeiit, I don't care about you people. I became a senator to enrich myself. I don't care about you peasants. Yeah I stole a lot of money because I'm smart. You people are dumb. I have never given to the community because you are all hopeless. I'm entitled to this money and I will continue to make myself ricer so I can stay from this Baltimore slum." Had he said all that, he would have been in prison so quick.*
This is so sad. I'm always blaming the politicians for the state of affairs in my country (South Africa) but this also sheds the light on our share of the blame. We are too quick too forgive their corruption, an eloquent speech and all is well, we'll re-elect you again.
Shiiiiiiiiit!!! I can't believe I've done it again! Every time I see this clip I go and donate a pile of cash to Clay Davis. I know he's only a TV character, but he's just so damn believable. Bloody silver tongued devil!
I realize just now that this character deserves his own serie like "Better Call Saul". He's not the only one in this serie (Omar, Mozon, etc..), in every show they should prepare another potential serie for a mysterious, a funny or a interesting character.
It's definitely laughable and completely ridiculous lol. Man said all the money from the donations that ended up in his personal account was ALL being used to help people in the neighborhood with random problems That is such horseshit that no one should believe but he tells the story in such a charismatic and confident way that he makes it sound believable
The black jury voting to keep him free didn't realize that he was the cause of most of their problems. As so often people look outside their own group for scapegoats without realizing that the true problem often lies within.
This was some of the most brilliant acting ever. Peep notice how the lawyer and Clay Davis acting scene counter acted with each other. At first you would think Clay Davis Lawyer was prosectuing him. Such brilliant writing. Please bring the wire back
I know this is an 11 year old comment but his lawyer is actually a real Baltimore lawyer. His name is Billy Murphy Jr. and he's playing himself in this scene. He's one of the best defense attorneys in Maryland. A bunch of the credit for this scene goes to him because he knows how to do a convincing direct examination.
As always, The Wire is spot on about the corrupted system. The saddest part is that people continue to fight each other over people who don't care about them. When the rich pass laws, it’s the poor who fall victim to its interpretation. And when the powerful wage war, it’s the weak who die.
I love the look on Clay's face just before this scene when he's walking up the court's steps; he goes from toothy grinned confidence to arse collapsing worry in one swift move. He's such a great character. Would I vote for Clay Davis? Hell yeah...Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-yit!
This why the jury system is shit. Justice should be served by people who have studied law, not random citizens who can be moved by passionate speeches.
+thestranger4812 It's not shit just because people don't have law degrees. The real reason this case failed, and Clay Davis wasn't subsequently put behind bars, is because of a man with a law degree. If State's attorney Bond had taken Freamon's advice, taking the "headshot" case federal, they would have got their man. But that guy with the law degree wanted something for himself on the way to justice, watering down the prosecution's case to suit his own ends, therefore resulting in it's failure to secure a guilty verdict. Also, the jurors weren't necessarily "moved by passionate speeches". All they're being told is Clay Davis has taken drug money. They haven't been presented with any evidence that Davis was using this money for personal gain (which is what Freamon could show with his "headshot"). A senator redistributing money from the drug trade that has blighted their city to community projects and helping law abiding citizens is probably music to their ears. The Judge is there to guide the juror on matters of the law, likewise the prosecution and defence, it is the role of the juror to be moral arbiters. To decide not whether something is legal, but to decide whether they agree with conviction on the basis of said law. It is a pivotal tradition in Anglo Saxon common law; the idea that even if a law is on the statute books, and even if it was passed through democratic assembly, you still had the additional check and balance that this law had to be tested by a jury of the people, who had to live by said law, ensuring it would continue to be tested throughout time. "If the jury have no right to judge of the justice of a law of the government, they plainly can do nothing to protect the people against the oppressions of the government; for there are no oppressions which the government may not authorize by law." - Lysander Spooner, American abolitionist and political philosopher.
+Fox McCloud - Two hundred years ago it may have been true, when common people with common sense could understand and apply law, the judge was needed just to oversee the procedure. But nowadays, when laws have become simultaneously abstract and concrete, they have become too difficult to understand a situation for the everyman. Professionals are not just needed, but required apply the law. Professional jury or lawyers... but America needs its system to move on from how it may have been 240 years ago.
+andrew7taylor I completely disagree in this specific case and I disagree in part with your general point. In this specific case I think the jury did it's job perfectly; they judged the morality of the case as they saw it. They judged that it was, in their eyes, a moral deed to take drug money from drug dealers and funnel it into projects that would help their community. Only we, the viewer, knew that Clay Davis was taking drug money to enrich himself and only spent a few here and there on good causes to cover for his corruption. The prosecution did not provide any evidence to back up their claim that Clay Davis was personally benefiting from this money. Therefore it came down to the prosecution's word against Clay Davis', and the jury rightly acquitted on the basis of reasonable doubt. And on jury trial in general I would agree that if you only want to enforce the law then you would restrict jury duty to only those people that understand the law. But as I said above this is not the original purpose of the jury.
No, the jury did not do their job perfectly. And the prosecution did provide evidence. What part of "money from charity being deposited into personal bank account" isn't evidence. To be perfectly honest, transferring money from charity funds to your own bank account IS ILLEGAL regardless of whether you're doing it to do a better job than the charity fund. So even if Clay wanted to help his community with the money, he technically did do something illegal, and should have been prosecuted for it. And to be perfectly fair, the jury did become emotionally susceptible to Clay Davis' charismatic personality and his warm speech about community service and brotherhood. The Jury is meant to judge evidence without bias, not be warmed by the talks of brotherhood by a fellow African American. I strongly think that the Jury should be half citizen, half professionals with thorough understanding of the law. It's the only way to make it fair.
