In episode 3 of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law we get a glimpse into the world of the parole system. But how accurate is it, is Jen’s argument valid, does someone with seven soul mates stand a chance at getting released from prison? Let’s dig in, and find out.
What Happened Last Time:
Before we delve into the real world of laws, let’s take a look at the episode itself. Spoiler alerts through episode 3 of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law abound from here on out, you’ve been warned. Jen finds herself fired from her job as an assistant district attorney, hired by the firm of GLK&H, and placed on the case of Emil Blonsky-AKA: The Abomination. Remember him from The Incredible Hulk (2008)? After his epic fight with The Hulk, Blonsky apparently found himself tried, convicted, and imprisoned. He now resides in the (presumably) federal prison run by Damage Control. During his stay, he has been corresponding with seven women who are his soulmates, and he wants to be released to go live with them. Jen met with him in the prison and is now 100% certain she can win the case. That brings us up to the start of the hearing, do we think Jen can win her case?
Just the Facts:
Could Jen win Blonsky’s release on parole in our world? Well, no. Unfortunately for Jen, the federal government abolished its parole system in the late 1980’s.[1] That means that Blonsky is in prison until his sentence is up. That answer would have made for a really dull episode though, and wouldn’t have been a particularly good start to the career of She-Hulk, attorney for GLK&H. So, it’s a good thing for her that Blonsky’s case isn’t happening in our world. Since this is the world of the MCU we can make some assumptions about how the laws work and call it creative license.
We never really find out what The Abomination was convicted of but we can make some educated guesses. Lucky for us, Josh Gilliland of The Legal Geeks already did that for us in his article Justice for the Abomination. When she meets with Blonsky in episode 2, Jen also starts to form the basis of what would have been a pretty good defense for Blonsky at his trial. Blonsky, it seems, was experimented on by the US government and turned from a decorated soldier into a crazed -well- Abomination. That would give Blonsky a very real chance of prevailing at trial under a theory that he was not in control of his actions because of the unknown side effect of a drug. (We the audience may know that Blonsky also had Samuel Sterns add some of the Hulk blood serum to the Super Soldier serum and that might be a problem, but it doesn’t seem likely the prosecution would know about that and be able to use it in a trial). So, let’s assume that Blonsky agrees to a plea bargain which gives him the option of parole after some number of years and he’s now legally eligible. So, in that world can Jen prevail?
The Law:
Apparently, she can. We know that because we see the ruling at the end of the episode. But how accurate is what we see? We get a short look at the preparation for the hearing at the end of episode 2 and a quick peek at what a hearing might look like in episode 3. Let’s start with the prep though. Jen comes into the case after it’s already started when she’s assigned the file by her boss. This means that there has already been several meetings between the firm’s lawyers and Blonsky: he’s signed a fee agreement, they’ve prepared the necessary application, filed that application with the Parole Board, and gotten a hearing date set. It’s not impossible, or even unlikely, that after signing a big name client the firm partner would pass the case off to a more junior associate which is how She-Hulk would become involved. From there a good first step is to review the file, which we see Jen doing, and then to meet with the client to introduce herself. We see Jen’s first meeting with Blonsky and it’s plausible. She goes over some of the basic law with him and they form a bit of a rapport. It’s not even out of the question that Blonsky would try to sell Jen on his case like he does. Even the walk into the prison is fairly realistic with the warnings and the security checks (though the laser grid isn’t quite what we have in our prisons and Blonsky’s cell is straight out of the MCU). Then we see the time skip to the hearing and, much as I would sometimes like to skip straight to the hearing in a case, that’s one of the least realistic moments in the episode. There’s a Hulk sized amount of work that goes into any hearing, and even assuming that some of it had been done before She-Hulk took her new job, there’s way more than a single meeting with the client that goes into it. Let’s assume, for the sake of the article, that She-Hulk’s predecessor did all the briefing and memo drafting and there’s just the hearing prep left. That still leaves meeting with all the witness to go over their testimony, and that includes Blonsky (but more on that in a bit), meeting with Blonsky as the client to prepare him for how the hearing is going to operate, and of course practicing in front of Nikki like we saw in episode 1. That’s hours of work, so it’s understandable that they wouldn’t put it in a half an hour episode.
The Hearing:
So, that takes us up to the actual hearing- or almost. While She-Hulk is doing all of her work the parole board is doing theirs. In our world, the hearing representatives would review the parole application for eligibility and prepare questions for the inmate. There are no live witnesses at our world’s parole hearings, just the inmate and the victim (or a representative for the victim) who can make a statement if they so chose. Instead of testimony, they rely on documents submitted by the inmate, the original sentencing judge, and the US Attorney who prosecuted the case. Clearly, the world of the MCU doesn’t work that way and the parole hearing board took witness testimony. We’ll also need to assume that none of the victims in Blonsky’s case chose to make a statement at the hearing, which of course doesn’t mean that they didn’t submit something in writing which wasn’t read during the portion of the hearing they showed in the episode. The show takes some liberties with how testimony was presented, breaking each witness’ statement up into pieces and mixing them all together. Even in the MCU world though there’s no practical way to do that. It’s more likely that the witnesses would get to make their complete statements, one at a time. The Board would be able to ask each witness questions as well as simply taking their statements. Since we’re making a series of assumptions about the differences between our world and the MCU we don’t know with any great certainty how witnesses adverse to Blonsky would be handled, but there are two possibilities. Either someone would serve in a prosecutorial type role and call them, or -more likely- the Board would have reviewed Blonsky’s records, from before and after prison, and could request or require the appearance of any other witnesses they wanted to hear from.
That takes us to Blonsky’s statement. As the one applying for parole, he would have the right to make a statement in both our world, and presumably the MCU. The purpose of this statement is to convince the Board that he is reformed and should be released from prison on parole. We see how he does this in the episode and it’s not a bad depiction of how I expect it would really be done except for a few things. First and foremost, Jen wouldn’t be surprised by Blonsky making a statement. If he really wants to win his parole the Board is going to want to hear from him about how he’s reformed and why he won’t reoffend if released on parole. Since that’s the ultimate question of the hearing and really only Blonsky can answer it, it’s a good idea to have him speak to the Board. As I mentioned above, Jen and Blonsky would have thought through his statement together and practiced his statement, so there’s really no reason Jen should be surprised by him wanting to give it. The other oddity is Blonsky turning into Abomination. It stretches belief that this wasn’t something he and Jen would have discussed beforehand. It’s a fairly obvious sticking point for the Board in releasing Blonsky so it’s something that he and Jen should have discussed ahead of time. Jen, being an accomplished assistant district attorney, would have had a pretty good idea what the State’s interest would be in keeping Blonsky in prison so she’s in a good position to help Blonsky think of counter arguments to it. Blonsky, wanting to be released, would be strongly motivated to tell his attorney that he could control his Abomination form. Jen could have set that argument up better ahead of time, so that the Board didn’t get scared, the guards didn’t rush into the room, and so no one got accidentally hurt. It also doesn’t help your case to freak out your lawyer. Proper preparation for that hearing and Jen can set the tone for how that is presented. If she’s standing next to him, not running around the room in what appears to be a near panic, and calm instead of worried; that attitude can be infectious to others in the room. Especially the Parole Board. Handled well, Blonsky transforming into a totally controllable Abomination in front of the Board and everyone can be the most powerful bit of testimony in the hearing. You then get to present a decorated war hero, who was turned into a monster by barely sanctioned science (remember there’s no one left who knows that he asked for the Hulk blood that ultimately makes him Abomination), but who has managed to conquer that monster and is ready to be released back into society. The bit with putting his shoes together is an especially nice touch to demonstrate how gentle he is and how much control he has. Handled poorly (and without plot armor), Blonsky is summarily shot/zapped/blasted by whatever security measures the prison has in place and that ends the hearing really quickly.
The End?
So, Blonsky is released with some conditions that he must follow. This in and of itself is pretty normal. Someone released on parole would have a parole officer who checks in on them from time to time and makes sure they’re following the law. Someone who commits a crime in a car might not allowed to have a driver’s license or drive a car. We have little way of knowing however, if the conditions of Blonsky’s release are normal in the MCU. There’s some evidence in the comics to suggest that people released from jail are put under conditions restricting the use of their super abilities, but the MCU hasn’t delved deeply into that issue. Perhaps we’ll see more in the upcoming Thunderbolts project. In the meantime, good luck Emil and your soul mates. Stay out of trouble.
[1] Those prisoners sentenced for offenses committed before November of 1987 and who were sentenced to over 30 years can still apply for parole since they’re grandfathered into the system.