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. The term was used by Paul Krugman, who wrote in The New York Times that John Taylor uses the Chewbacca defense as a seemingly last option for defending his hawkish monetary policy position, after years of publicly stating that "quantitative easing would lead to a major acceleration of inflation." Analysis by lawyers Lawyer Josh Gilliland states in his blog that "A judge likely would say, 'I have a bad feeling about this' and possibly declare a mistrial if such an argument was made in court." Gilliland continued "A party successfully using the Chewbacca Defense to confuse the jury into engaging in jury nullification in a civil lawsuit runs the risk of the losing party winning on a Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict (JNOV). In Chef's case, the copyright violation should have entitled him to a judgment as a matter of law." Lawyer Devin Stone outlined all the things that he claimed would never happen in a real case, giving the episode a "C−" for legal accuracy. See also References Further reading Browning, John G. (2014). "A Long Time Ago, in A Courtroom Far, Far Away There's No Denying That the Force Is All Around Us-Even Judges Refer to George Lucas's Pop Culture Science Fiction Saga", 77 Texas Bar Journal 158, 161 Criminal defenses English phrases South Park Star Wars fandom Informal legal terminology 1998 neologisms Relevance fallacies Legal terminology from popular culture