Rogue588

Perhaps a merge is in order..

Goldberg74

Sorry Rogue588... missed your post... I'll notify the Mods.

Rogue588

hey man, it's no biggie..

hopefully they could merge your poll into it..

movieking

As for the poll, it is definitely a hard question. On one hand, you do have a duty to your client as well as the legal profession, but on the other hand, the client was sentenced to death so the lawyer could not do anything else for him. The general public obviously would want to know where the bodies were (as would the grieving parents).

I think that if I was in the situation, I would have to tell where the bodies were. I don't think that I could live with myself knowing where a stack of dead bodies were and not doing anything about it. I would have to say I would risk getting disbarred with the hopes that the unique situation would be grounds for getting around losing the license.

devilshalo

Well, he could have done something to tip off where the bodies were anonymously.

kantonburg

Why couldn't an anonomyous note just show up in the mail at the police station. He could tell where they where and technically they wouldn't know who it was. Oh I forgot. It's TV

movieking

He would still be violating his client confidentiality agreement, which is what he didn't want to do. Besides, it would probably be pretty easy to determine it was him, and even if it wasn't, it would be assumed that it was, which would mean that his clients would have lost faith in him.

Besides, that is what Jamie Ross did in a previous season, and it came back to bite her in the ass when she guest starred on an episode when Angie Harmon was the ADA. She was heading into her disbarment (sp?) hearing when the season ended...

Red Dog

Hard to say and that is even as a lawyer. Of course, you could leak the location. I guess this is one reason why I would never be criminal defense attorney.

Red Dog

She did look better last night.

Still - worst actress ever. Ever.

Jobronie

Noticeably tan.....

Rogue588

hey Red Dog...

are you the one that doesn't like Vincent D'Onofrio...?

Red Dog

Not him personally, but I detest the character. I cannot stand CI. However, I would love to see a crossover just to see Lenny's reaction to his omniscience. I think it would go something like this:

das Monkey

I could only hope I'd have the strength not to. Honestly, I'm not sure I'd have that kind of strength and thank God I don't need to. Screw getting disbarred. If you betray your client, you betray the American justice system and this country. The only reason a client tells his lawyer something in the first place is the promise of confidentiality. Once that sacred trust is lost, clients stop telling lawyers anything, more innocent men go to prison, more guilty me roam free, and the criminal justice system becomes less valid and effective than it already is.

If you're worried about getting disbarred, you're missing the point. Yeah, they might not disbar you for it, but like he said ... shame on them.

das

Jlbkwrm

I couldn't go to jail for it, no way. I'd probably freak out on seeing the bodies and call the police. If I had the presence of mind to avoid that, I probably would leak the information. But I'm not a lawyer, and I really, really don't want to be one.

It did surprise me that the episode didn't end with the female lawyer leaking the location to the press. Knowing would explain why she was so freaked out, and she wouldn't be the most obvious suspect for betraying privilege.

lisadoris

I didn't get the impression that the female laywer knew where the bodies were. She just jetting because the client was scaring the crap out of her on general principal. I could be wrong though.

Jobronie

Didn't they do something very similar on LALaw? I think it was Anne Kelsey or Grace VanOwen who wanted to blow the whistle, but didn't want to get sued or disbarred. She discussed her feelings with a judge. The judge, who was about to retire anyway, agreed with her, and he took the bullet for her and blew the whistle himself.....

Red Dog

Now that's some good Law & Order. It is now a shame that you practically have to wait half-a-season to see a quality one. Used to be a weekly occurrance.

A good story with a relatively novel issue.

Good procedural law question - don't know the constitutional law on Miranda and the language barrier. I'll have to look that up.

An A-hole defense attorney. Good twists too.

We actually got some depth into Serena's character. I've been waiting 2 1/2 years to figure out her politics. The writers finally gave her character some teeth with her discussion of the women's lib movement re: surrogacy and illegal immigrants.

Finally, a very Adam Schiff-esque performance by Senator Thompson, aka DA Arthur Branch. I loved his witty remark here



What a great line! Of course, Judge Larkin throws out the confession.

movieking

I didn't really like it. I found that it was a messy episode with too many changes in direction...

MrX

I loved that line too.

I didn't really care for this episode though.

lisadoris

The right turn signal line was funny and I did like the episode. Mostly because it does bring up a good point about Miranda and people whose native language isn't English (these kinds of things interest me).

Yes they finally gave Serena something to say but I still don't care for her character. I thought the defense attorney's line to Jack that they keep getting smarter and better looking was kinda funny too given the character's history.

OldDude

Actually, the Miranda/ESL thing annoyed the hell out of me. It was typical of our justice system and lawyers. Nevermind whether the guy's command of English is actually sufficient to understand the Miranda (it obviously was from watching the interview).

The legal system looks for stupid excuses to let criminals off the hook. Rather than look at actual English skills, the reasoning is "oh, he's a foreigner, his English skills might be poor, we'll just let it slide."

Obviously, if they needed an interpreter to conduct the interview, I'd have a different viewpoint.

Red Dog

Like I said - I don't know the law on ESL/Miranda, but usually L&O gets procedural law correct. This is probably one of those things that comes down to each judge and each defendant. Probably 9 out of 10 judges would say SOL to this defendant and admit the confession. As Arthur indicated, they drew the wrong judge for it.

Of course there are exceptions - a great one was how they just said that the trash can search in last week's episode was unconstitutional based on the curtilage concept. That was ridiculous, but I guess they needed to get the episode moving along.


While the character is lacking, most of the blame should be directed toward the actress.

Derrich

L&O has officially become a bad show.

They start out with an interesting premise(ripped from the headlines of course) but within 15minutes it's tossed out of the window and the rest of the show is about homeless people. And it wasn't even a decent case.

A few points:
-How did the first defense lawyer magically know to ask for his own autopsy?
-The lady in the Aston Martin gets off with probation? No matter how you explain it, that seemed way off.
-Sitting in a 5 star restaurant sipping wine while talking about the homeless was taking the irony bit a little too far.
-'Sounds human to me'. Thats was the big comeback line?
-Elizabeth Rohms acting hasn't gotten any better and her character is becoming a pale version of Jamie Ross.

D

Goldberg74

I was glad that they switched stories. In TX that first story was hammered to death on the news, and I was rolling my eyes when I picked up on what they were doing.

It was a welcomed relief to see the story focus change.

The homeless has always been a hard topic to deal with and I'm glad they began to address it. I for one think that all people are under the law, and there should really be no special exceptions.

Now don't judge me by this, but I find it more comfortable to donated to those who will help the homeless, rather than pass out money, food, etc. to Joe Blow on the street. I had a friend give a sandwich to a guy that asking for money and food, and the man chucked the offering and demanded money for booze. That's a shame.

As for the brother (the dead guy), his mental state made him the way he was, when I believe that the killer could have changed his situation.

I for one hope I never put myself in the position to become homeless. That's a valid fear.

While over the top, I thought it was a good ep. Not nearly as creepy as last night SVU... ouch!

And the blonde ADA needs to be thrown out into the street... and I miss Cabot.

Cusm

I have noticed a new MO for LO ripped from the headlines. Original L&O start with a straight story from the headlines, then goes off on an "unexpected" tangent to find the real criminal. L&O:SVU has taken the ripped from the headlines and have reworked it into a better story(Tuesday is an example, the real case involved High School football players, but w/o the murder - unless there was a murder case I did not hear about). I preefer the SVU method over the original, but I have hope the writers will chill out and return L&O to it's original glory.