Comments on: Prime Time is Crime Time

By: A.W.

A.W. — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:42:17 +0000

What, you mean ashely judd misled me? Once convicted of murdering a person, and it turned out they are alive, i CAN’T kill them later and get off scott free? Ah, crap. Well, there goes my weekend plans.

/silliness

Btw, Law and Order has gotten better recently. imho.

And you left out another big legal show: Boston Legal. Which, yes, often deals with crim. law.

As for watching these shows, my advice to non-lawyers is just assume everything it says about the law is wrong. As for lawyers, I say, just forget everything you know about the law and enjoy the human drama. I mean seriously, how can a person even sit through the legally illiterate ones like Boston Legal, otherwise?

By: peter

peter — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 03:57:59 +0000

Brett — I have no doubt that you are absolutely right. I think that when Corey wrote, “I’m guessing this phenomenon is unique to criminal law,” the sense was, “I’m guessing that when legal errors are made on cop shows, the errors relate specifically to criminal law.” It would be surprising indeed if the producers were uniquely more inclined to ignore legal issues than, say, questions about engineering, genomics, or literary history.

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 01:07:45 +0000

Corey, by “everything”, I scarcely meant just “other areas of law”. I meant, “everything”. Physics, chemistry, history, everything.

Just keep in mind that the only subject people producing TV and movies are well versed in or care to get right is producing TV and movies.

By: joe

joe — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:40:13 +0000

Corey,

The rules of evidence are terribly abused in the context of TV lawsuits as well. Think about the daytime TV “courts”. Even educated people tend to assume that those are more or less accurate to how a real court would operate.

By: Joe

Joe — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:40:05 +0000

Corey,

By: Corey Rayburn Yung

Corey Rayburn Yung — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 19:01:00 +0000

Hi Brett,

I’m not assuming that they are getting other areas of law right – I’m assuming that other areas of law are rarely explored on TV. While there are dozens of criminal law shows, I’m not sure that there has ever been a property law show. Some TV shows and movies address civil litigation, but I’m “guessing” that there is nothing in other areas of law resembling the level of misinformation in the criminal sphere. That simply stems from the infrequency of the depiction of other law subjects. I’m happy to hear examples to the contrary from people teaching other subjects or anyone else.

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 13:53:45 +0000

“I’m guessing this phenomenon is unique to criminal law,”

They get something you know about grossly wrong, and you blithely assume that they’re getting the stuff you’re not so well informed about right?

Why?

No, they get everything that wrong.

By: student

student — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:43:38 +0000

My favorite was a big multi-episode arc on House a season or two ago, where a local detective is finally closing in on House’s abuse of painkillers (oxycodone, I think?). The detective finally catches House red-handed writing out a prescription in the name of a deceased patient, having some pharmacist fill it, and then walking away with the pills.

On trial for violating the federal Controlled Substances Act, House is about to convicted and locked up when another doctor swoops in to testify that she knew House was going to do this and arranged for the pharmacist to fill the bottle with placebos instead. The judge then rules from the bench that if House didn’t get the actual pills, then he couldn’t have committed the crime, and issues a directed verdict of acquittal on the spot. Apparently this judge never learned, as all 1Ls do, that federal law punishes attempt exactly the same as it does a successful crime…

By: A.J. Sutter

A.J. Sutter — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 08:18:04 +0000

TJ, could one difference be that TV viewers serve on juries? I seem to recall that law enforcement officers and DAs have complained about how the false expectations set up by CSI-style shows make it harder to obtain convictions; isn’t there a similar danger if jurors get fixated on stuff like motive and other false legalisms? Of course, motive in particular has long been a fixture of TV lawyer shows, but Perry Mason didn’t have the verisimilitude that L&O does.

By: TJ

TJ — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 07:54:43 +0000

Some are better than others. For example, Eli Stone actually cited cases by name in situations that were somewhat on point. But as much as lawyers would love when television gets the details right, why would the general public know or care? Is there any difference in whether you learn the real law on L&O as against whether you learn real medicine on ER or Gray’s Anatomy?

By: Howard Wasserman

Howard Wasserman — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 04:00:22 +0000

I stopped watching the shows because they get so much so badly wrong. And I have no doubt students bring that into school with them. My colleague found the perfect illustration of why students have so many mistaken ideas from a recent L&O: The mistress of an investment adviser who operated a Ponzi scheme (call him Mernie Badoff) is kidnapped by a defrauded investor, who kills her when she tries to escape. The investor’s attorney argues to the jury that the woman would be alive but for Badoff’s fraud; an objection is sustained, and the lawyer returns right to the same argument. The investor is acquitted.