L.A. Law (TV Series)

Great Balls Afire (1992)

Blair Underwood: Jonathan Rollins

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Quotes 

• Douglas Brackman, Jr. : Next stop, the Simon & Catherine Rubin Foundation vs. University of California and Dr. Emily Connor. We're representing Dr. Connor and the University?

  Jonathan Rollins : Yeah. The Rubin Foundation granted Dr. Connor $100,000 to study a new way to save heart attack and stroke victims, she's happy to the project and Kurt Rubin the Foundations President wants his money back.

  Cara Jean 'C.J.' Lamb : Why?

  Jonathan Rollins : He says she's breach the contract by using scientific data from the Nazi concentration camps.

  Alex DePalma : What?

  Tommy Mullaney : Nazis?

  Cara Jean 'C.J.' Lamb : What date?

  Stuart Markowitz : We're representing Nazis?

  Jonathan Rollins : No. We're representing a highly respected scientist who wants to save lives.

  Cara Jean 'C.J.' Lamb : Which particular Nazi experiments is she using?

  Jonathan Rollins : The deco hypothermia experiment.

  Cara Jean 'C.J.' Lamb : Huh.

  Jonathan Rollins : You know where they subject to prisoners to freezing temperatures and monitor the physiological responses.

  Alex DePalma : How many died?

  Jonathan Rollins : About 90 men, but tens of thousands die every month from heart disease and my client thinks you can save a lot of them.

  Stuart Markowitz : I'm sorry, I don't by that.

  Arnie Becker : You're hate to sound crass, but if it meant the life-or-death of somebody that I love dad want them to use the data, it won't change would have to those prisoners.

  Leland McKenzie : Well, I don't think it's quite that simple, Arnold.

  Jonathan Rollins : Come on, Leland, no one's saying experiments were horrendous, but there were 50 years ago. If the data concede even one life today, I feel...

  Leland McKenzie : Now, I - I'm - I'm not saying you shouldn't take the case, Jonathan. And I understand what Mr. Rubin is afraid of.

  Douglas Brackman, Jr. : Is there any possibility of a settlement?

  Jonathan Rollins : So far they haven't been willing, I think it just hoping for the best deal at the 11th hour.

  Douglas Brackman, Jr. : Good luck. And we're adjourned.

• Jonathan Rollins : We'd like to find some middle ground here, Mr. Rubin. We've still got a few minutes before court.

  Kurt Rubin : No.

  Lawyer Neil Robertson : Well, it can't hurt to at least listen, Kurt.

  Kurt Rubin : There is no middle ground. Using my money to legitimize Nazis desecrates the memory of my parents.

  Dr. Emily Connor : And letting people die honors them?

  Jonathan Rollins : Emily.

  Dr. Emily Connor : We have a contract.

  Kurt Rubin : This isn't just about contracts. It's about not forgetting.

  Dr. Emily Connor : This is pointless.

• Dr. David Howell : During 1942 and 43, approximately 350 male concentration camp prisoners were either plunged naked into vats of freezing water or hose down and left outdoors in sub-zero weather.

  Lawyer Neil Robertson : To lower the body temperatures to sub normal levels?

  Dr. David Howell : Yes. As their temperatures dropped physiological and biochemical changes were recorded. When they were near death, the Nazis tried various methods to rewarm them.

  Lawyer Neil Robertson : What was the so-called purpose for these experiments?

  Dr. David Howell : To find ways to save German pilots who fell into the North Sea when their planes were shot down.

  Lawyer Neil Robertson : As an expert on these experiments, so, how would say the Dachau study measures up scientifically?

  Dr. David Howell : The report is riddled with inconsistencies and very likely falsifications. There is no evidence that scientific standards were maintained.

  Lawyer Neil Robertson : And what about the man who ran these experiments?

  Dr. David Howell : Dr. Sigmund Rascher was a mediocre scientist. But he was an accomplished sadist, whose hobbies included collecting human skin for riding breeches.

  Lawyer Neil Robertson : Did Dr. Rascher conduct any other experiments for the Nazis?

  Jonathan Rollins : Objection, relevance.

  Lawyer Neil Robertson : Goes of the competency of the researcher, Your Honor.

  Judge Donald Phillips : I'll allow it.

  Dr. David Howell : I hesitate to call what Rascher did experiments, he be put people in pressure chambers until his subjects lungs exploded. He also slaughtered men and women by amputated their limbs. To test a medication he claimed would reduce bleeding.

  Lawyer Neil Robertson : Dr. Howell, if a scientist came forward today with data gathered using methods like Sigmund Rascher's, what do you think would happened?

  Dr. David Howell : He'd be thrown in prison and his data recognized for the garbage it is.

  Lawyer Neil Robertson : Thank you. Your witness.

• Jonathan Rollins : You say this data is garbage, Dr. Howell?

  Dr. David Howell : Yes.

  Jonathan Rollins : Then how do you explain the fact that it's been cited in numerous respected medical studies?

  Dr. David Howell : The author's obviously only took the results at face value. They haven't done any real analysis.

  Jonathan Rollins : But didn't Dachau data help researchers develop techniques for open-heart surgery and cold water survival suits?

  Dr. David Howell : The degree to which that data helped is highly debatable, Counsel. The majority of medical ethicists agree with me.

  Jonathan Rollins : Medical ethicists degree and that's primarily your field, isn't it, Doctor?

  Dr. David Howell : Yes.

  Jonathan Rollins : But physicians and physiologists like Dr. Connor, have found that data valuable and utilized it in the past, isn't that correct?

  Dr. David Howell : Every time that we accept, the unacceptable, the unspeakable, we bring it that much closer to happening again.

  Jonathan Rollins : Doctor, we don't live in Nazi Germany.

  Dr. David Howell : Starting in 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service studied hundreds of black men with syphilis. They never told them they had the disease. Bad blood is what they called it. And even after the introduction of penicillin, they refuse to cure them. Those men died horrible deaths, all for the sake of a study, a study that didn't stop until 1972, so don't tell me, this kind of thing can't happen here, Counsel.

  Jonathan Rollins : That's tragic, Dr. Howell, but it is not with his case is about. Dr. Connor is not an unethical researcher.

  Dr. David Howell : She is. If she uses unethical data.

  Jonathan Rollins : Or maybe she saw a way to bring some good out of the pain and tear these prisoners suffered.

  Lawyer Neil Robertson : Objection.

  Jonathan Rollins : Withdrawn. I have nothing further.