Law & Order

Second Opinion - S5-E1

Factual error: Ryan, the laboratory technician, eats his lunch of burger and fries while discussing a murder case with Assistant D.A. Claire Kincaid. Trouble is, they are in his laboratory. No lab technician ever, ever eats or drinks in a laboratory - it is the most basic lab protocol imaginable. He could contaminate his samples in any one of a hundred ways, he inevitably contaminates his gloves or fingers with residue from his meal and he risks poisoning himself with accidental transfer. This is not a character error - lab security is hammered into science students starting with the first day of first year and number one on the list is never, ever eat or drink in your lab.

Show generally

Factual error: Detective Nina Cassady (who was introduced towards the end of Season 17) frequently wears casual tops that show far too much cleavage for a police officer on duty. If she showed up for duty dressed like that she would be sent home to change.

Whiplash - S11-E19

Factual error: While discussing the death of a car accident victim with detectives, the pathologist Dr Elizabeth Rodgers takes out a french fry, seasons it with mayonnaise and eats it. She is in the morgue, wearing bloodstained scrubs. Nobody ever eats or drinks in a morgue. This is not a character error; eating and drinking in a sterile laboratory environment is absolutely forbidden and this is taught to medical and science students from day one of their degree courses. In fact she would not even have food in there in the first place.

Executioner - S18-E9

Factual error: Yost attacks and kills an innocent man, believing him to be Dr. Horace Garrison, a physician who administered a faulty lethal injection to a condemned prisoner, reducing him to a vegetative state rather than killing him. The problem is, medical doctors never, ever participate in an execution except to certify death, a legal requirement. They do not, ever, take an active role in killing the condemned person.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: I'm not sure where you're getting your information, but medical doctors are involved in lethal injections more than just certifying death. This is why so many groups were actively trying to stop the practice of medical profession involvement. In 2007, 17 states required physician involvement, which included doctors at times having to administer the injection.

Bishop73

The botched execution took place in South Carolina, which absolutely forbids medical practitioners to take an active role in killing a condemned prisoner. In fact, they are considering switching executing prisoners by firing squad instead of lethal injection, at least partly to distance medical professionals from the actual procedure leading to a person's death.

Suicide Box - S13-E16

Factual error: Further to the error regarding eating in the morgue, in this episode Dr Rodgers happily munches on a sandwich with a dead body on the slab less than a metre away. As has been pointed out, nobody ever eats or drinks in a morgue.

Personae Non Grata - S18-E17

Factual error: While assisting Detectives Lupo and Bernard, the librarian in the New York library map room handles maps dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth century in a bizarrely cavalier manner. He does not wear soft cotton gloves, and flips the pages of the map books over as if they were modern books. Such maps would be extremely fragile and would never be handled roughly the way he does, and they would not be stored in plastic folders anyway. They would be stored flat in individual glass cases, and they would never, ever be touched with bare hands.

Slaughter - S12-E19

Factual error: When Green is going over the victims' phone records, he mentions a call to the 508 area code, which they said would have been a call to his parents. The victim's parents lived in Amherst Massachusetts, which is the 413 area code.

Maria Santos

Show generally

Factual error: When the cops need to arrest a medical professional, they are frequently shown barging into his/her office, exam room, or even operating room. This would never happen in real life and is strictly forbidden, as it is a gross violation of the patient's privacy, and in the case of the OR, could contaminate the sterile environment, thereby jeopardizing patient safety as well.

Blaze - S14-E5

Factual error: The arraignment is held on "Thursday, November 26" but, if November 26 falls on a Thursday, it would be the Thanksgiving holiday and, therefore, no court would be in session.

MovieFan612

Second Opinion - S5-E1

Factual error: Ryan, the laboratory technician, eats his lunch of burger and fries while discussing a murder case with Assistant D.A. Claire Kincaid. Trouble is, they are in his laboratory. No lab technician ever, ever eats or drinks in a laboratory - it is the most basic lab protocol imaginable. He could contaminate his samples in any one of a hundred ways, he inevitably contaminates his gloves or fingers with residue from his meal and he risks poisoning himself with accidental transfer. This is not a character error - lab security is hammered into science students starting with the first day of first year and number one on the list is never, ever eat or drink in your lab.

More mistakes in Law & Order

Det. Lennie Briscoe: Boy, I'd hate for somebody to trace me by what I read.
Det. Rey Curtis: You read, Lennie?

More quotes from Law & Order

Trivia: Before his transfer to the NYPD, Joe Fontana (played by Dennis Farina) worked as a detective in Chicago. Before becoming an actor, Farina served in the Chicago police department, both as a police officer and a detective. Farina also played a Chicago police officer on the short-lived 1980s TV series Crime Story.

Cubs Fan

More trivia for Law & Order

Answer: He believed that she had become too empathetic towards the defendant they had been prosecuting, and that her actions were driven by her emotions instead of facts. While empathy is a good quality in general, a certain degree of detachment is required in order for a prosecutor to do one's job effectively.

Cubs Fan

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