Re: Stupid tv I'm watching Law & Order "Castle in the Sky" 5/2/2024 (spoilers)

BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

Slightly ambitious script does a lousy job exploring castle doctrine,
homelessness, and [sic] "squatting" in a case in which the twist
is claimed to be self defense.

Of course the script did a shitty job exploring the legal issues with
the emphasis entirely on the sob story.

Too bad RichA isn't here as his head would have exploded with the
story's "victim" (that would be the perpetrator), making him the white
father of a deaf girl.

Some rich developer is getting a humanitarian award; interim DA Baxter
is a long time friend. Baxter witnesses a fight he has with his
drug-addicted son.

The son is the murder victim, found in one of his father's developments
with the son supposedly managing construction. There's a security guard
who claims to be good buddies with the victim. He doesn't work nights
and the son had turned off the security system, to meet another friend
of his, his drug dealer.

Now, we see the gunshot wounds, which sure looked like they were fired
from a distance of at least a few feet, penetrating the chest
perpendiclar to the body. This plot point will be dropped during trial.

This show rarely gets into any kind of forensics at trial because that
sort of testimony takes hours and can't typically be summed up in the
two questions each side is apparently limited to by the court.

If Jennifer Garner and team Alias could get to the other side of the
world from one scene to the next without any time passing...

Then the STOOPID begins. The security guard is a hard-luck guy, so the
script piles it on and tries to force the audience to sympathize. I
mean, it's only murder of a rich asshole's entitled drug-addicted son.
As we learned from Maroun several episodes back, we should not prosecute
a murderer to the fullest extent of the law if he can be a witness for
the prosecution for a worse crime like rape.

Well, the guard is a widower. (We learn later that his wife died of
ovarian cancer and he was left in massive medical debt.) Also he has an
adorable daughter who is deaf and attending private school.

Lt. Dixon can read and sign! Her adult son is deaf and teaches at that
school!

Getting to the castle doctrine bit now.

You totally skipped the massive Miranda violation that occurred when the
cops showed up at the guard's work and forced him to come to the station
with them, even after he said his child was there. They made him come
anyway, saying they'd provide supervision for the girl at the precinct
while they talked. It was quite clear the guard was not free to go.

Yes, you're right. I should have recounted this. I was under the
impression that they'd already made the decision to arrest and charge him
in the previous scene. Yes I know we didn't see the prosecutor approve
charges either.

Cops + custody + questioning = Miranda required.

Except they didn't read him Miranda until after extensively questioning
him and eliciting several incriminating admissions from him and only
when he said, "I think I need a lawyer" did Riley tell him to stand up,
put cuffs on him, and start reading him Miranda.

Yes. Riley got it backwards.

His lawyer runs into court hysterically bleating about how the apartment
in which he was trespassing was his home and should therefore have 4th
Amendment protection (which she amazingly won, against all law and
common sense) but she never says a thing about the huge honkin' Miranda
violation that occurred at the precinct.

Sixty years later, violating Miranda is no longer woke it seems.

If I'm ever arrested in New York, I'm going to have my lawyer demand a
Dick Wolf judge for my trial. They seem constitutionally incapable of
ever making a ruling in favor of the prosecution.

Hehehehehe

But then, Dixon goes with her son to see the daughter, briefly being
cared for by another parent at her school. Dixon sees the discussion
between the daughter and her son.

That's the great thing about being able to sign-- you can eavesdrop on
conversations from a great distance. A lot farther away than with spoken
words. I wonder if there's legal precedent about that?

I thought the son was going to announce he would let the girl live with
him and take care of her if the father was convicted... or something
equally insipid.

Yeah

. . .

And as the defendant is pulled from the courtroom signing "I love you"
to his crying daughter, we fade to black on tears brimming in Eleanor
Frutt's eyes.

<vomit>

Excellent succinct summary