As the verdict is announced, the nurse in Roark's room sees a shot of Jake, Lucien and Harry Rex on TV. This event is outside the courthouse and doesn't occur in the movie for another full minute.
When the Klansman rolls around, trying to put out the fire, the daytime shot suddenly switches to night.
Lucien enters the courtroom while Jake is giving his final summation. He stands at the back, disappears, then returns at the end of the summation.
When a fight breaks out in front of the courthouse, an aerial shot shows Ozzie and the officers running to the street. In the next shot, they are running full speed down the sidewalk.
When Rufus Buckley is shown from afar, just before questioning Cora Mae Cobb, she is not on the stand. In the next shot, she is on the stand.
The attorneys would not announce that the state or defense rests after closing arguments to the jury. They would make those pronouncements after the presentation of evidence, before jury summation.
Sandra Bullock's character state that she hasn't worn underwear for years, even though when the klan strip her she has underwear on, she was only exaggerating and making an uncomfortable situation comfortable when she was changing the bandage to Jake's wound which required him to take off his pants.
As Dwayne gets up from his seat to go to the witness stand he's wearing a blue windbreaker-type jacket. But when he's on the witness stand he's in shirt sleeves. Although not shown on-screen, it is possible that Dwayne simply took the jacket off once he sat down in the witness stand.
When Jake calls Max after the fire, Max tries to run past him, apparently toward the off-screen dog wrangler.
When Rufus and his team dramatically enter the courtroom, the inner doors fly open as if they're walking at speed into the room. But the outer doors just behind them are fully closed, indicating they were waiting in that chamber for the "action" cue.
It is outrageous to think in a case as volatile as this, after people have been beaten, kidnapped, assaulted, shot by a sniper, and even had their home burned to the ground, there would not be one single officer or bodyguard assigned to protect members of the defense team. However, that is exactly what is shown. This is a huge plot hole. (In the novel, Jake does have a sheriff's deputy assigned to protect him through the duration of the trial and beyond)
When Ellen and Jake officially meet for the first time outside of Jake's office building, Jake asks Ellen what brings her to Canton. Ellen replies that it was Carl Lee Hailey that brought her to town. But in fact Ellen came to town for the arraignment of the rapist Billy Ray Cobb and James Louis Willard, before she would have known who Carl Lee Hailey was.
If Jake is having trouble paying rent in the office with his practice and is having trouble paying his secretary, where is the money coming from to remodel his house? (Jake and Carla are remodeling the house themselves, which Harry Rex points out at the beginning of the movie)
When Rufus Buckley examines Deputy Looney in court, he addresses him as "Detective" instead of "Deputy".
During the Klan's first protest, Stump Sisson says "Klu Klux Klan. (a very common mispronunciation)" It should be Ku Klux Klan.
The Klan leader tells Freddie Lee Cobb that if he brings five friends who share similar ideals, they can all be part of the Klan. However, during their introduction to the group, Cobb only brings three guys.