Usage
The Associated Press obituary for Cochran mentioned the Chewbacca defense parody as one of the ways in which the attorney had entered pop culture.
Criminologist Dr. Thomas O'Connor says that when DNA evidence shows "inclusion", that is, does not exonerate a client by exclusion from the DNA sample provided, "About the only thing you can do is attack the lab for its (lack of) quality assurance and proficiency testing, or use a 'Chewbacca defense' … and try to razzle-dazzle the jury about how complex and complicated the other side's evidence or probability estimates are." Forensic scientist Erin Kenneally has argued that court challenges to digital evidence frequently use the Chewbacca defense by presenting multiple alternative explanations of forensic evidence obtained from computers and Internet providers to raise the reasonable doubt understood by a jury. Kenneally also provides methods that can be used to rebut a Chewbacca defense. Kenneally and colleague Anjali Swienton have presented this topic before the Florida State Court System and at the 2005 American Academy of Forensic Sciences annual meeting.
The term has also seen use in political commentary; Ellis Weiner wrote in The Huffington Post that Dinesh D'Souza was using the Chewbacca defense in criticism of then new Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, defining it as when "someone asserts his claim by saying something so patently nonsensical that the listener's brain shuts down completely".
Jay Heinrichs' book Thank You for Arguing states that the term "Chewbacca defense" is "sneaking into the lexicon" as another name for the red herring fallacy.
Read more about this topic: Chewbacca Defense
Famous quotes containing the word usage:
“...Often the accurate answer to a usage question begins, “It depends.” And what it depends on most often is where you are, who you are, who your listeners or readers are, and what your purpose in speaking or writing is.”
—Kenneth G. Wilson (b. 1923)
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don’t are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn’t put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)