The 2012 robbery of a Pay‐O‐Matic check‐cashing store in Queens, New York, which may have drawn inspiration from Ben Affleck's 2010 film, The Town, earned substantial attention from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday. Although judges on the circuit were at odds on whether clips from the movie should have been shown to jurors during the trial charging three men with the crime, the appeals court ultimately decides not to reverse their armed bank robbery convictions.The argument used by prosecutors was that the movie helped the defendants plan their heist. Lawyers for the defendants asked the judge to prohibit the movie from being shown, but the judged overruled their objection. This ruling on the movie amounted to grounds for appeal after the defendants were convicted. While this opened the door to an appeals hearing, it didn't, according the appeals court, amount to error that improperly prejudiced the jury.
In her dissent, Judge Analisa Torres wrote: that the "goal of commercial cinema is to thrill and entertain," and that movie-making is a "manipulative art." She further contended that there was a high risk that a juror "might conflate fiction and reality is obvious," and she noted that while the issue had never been addressed by her court "other courts have expressed deep distress about such evidence’s impact on the jury."
