Law & Order

Show generally

Question: I don't remember if it was this show or another L&O, but there was an episode where a reporter was overseas at a military encampment, reporting on a war. While there, he explains the military's plans by drawing them in the sand. Shortly later, the encampment is attacked. How could the enemy figure out where the encampment was? The reporter never said where the location was at, only what the soldiers were planning.

Mad Dog - S7-E18

Question: Surely McCoy would be in a lot of trouble, maybe even get disbarred, for using the power of his office to harass a former convict when he can't prove the guy did something else wrong?

Rob245

Extended Family - S3-E11

Question: Given that the mother pulled a vanishing act before with her daughter, why didn't the court put the child in foster care during the trial to make sure she didn't pull it again?

Rob245

Answer: Because it absolutely was a place of torture, well documented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse. You're either deliberately trying to be "provocative" and failing, or else you need to google things before posting questions with obvious answers.

No, I was only asking a question. One of the worst things that happened there, as I heard, was putting underwear on prisoners' heads. We at least didn't behead anyone. Sorry if I upset you, that wasn't my intent nor to be provocative.

Rob245

Seriously, read the Wikipedia page provided by the last answer. It's so, so much worse than "putting underwear on prisoners' heads" and just because they didn't behead anyone didn't mean that they didn't commit horrific abuse and at least one homicide.

No, you weren't "only asking a question". That's what Google's for. It was a massively loaded, ignorant question, and you were either being wilfully ignorant or deliberately disingenuous, and your comment about beheading is hardly helping your case. What, you think "physical abuse, sexual Humiliation, physical and psychological torture, and rape" is that much better than murder? Rhetorical question, don't try and justify your argument. "As I heard" isn't good enough - if you heard anything, then you should know to look into it more instead of faux innocent questions which don't fool anyone with half a brain. Stop asking stupid questions. You're either trying to get a rise out of people, in which case grow up, or else you're posting things which the simplest of google searches would have answered for you.

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

Absentia - S13-E13

Question: In one of the court scenes it states the date as the 26th of December. Upon a bit of searching it doesn't seem to fall as a holiday in the New York Supreme Court holidays calendar. While the day is generally observed as a holiday in many countries I am not sure about whether it is observed in any states of the United States?

Lummie

Chosen answer: December 25 is observed and some places close on the 24 (or just close early). The 26th is a normal work day.

shortdanzr

Answer: A courtroom trial that has been terminated prior to its normal conclusion. A mistrial has no legal effect and is considered an invalid or nugatory trial. This often happens when there is a lack of Jurisdiction, an incorrect jury selection or, as seen in many of the episodes, a hung jury, i.e. some jury members finding the defendant guilty while the other members of the jury will find the defendant not guilty and all jury members won't change their decision.

Answer: I was once a juror on a trial where the defendant started crying and talking about how his son would suffer if he went to jail. The judge became furious, decided that he had prejudiced the state's case (we were now thinking of his family, rather than if he were actually guilty), and declared a mistrial.

Brian Katcher

Answer: In short, any time a trial ends and is declared void before the jury delivers a verdict or a judge issues a decision. Generally a mistrial is caused by a jury not being able to come to unanimous decision or the prosecution does something that would make the trial unfair to the defendant.

Bishop73

Answer: Since...always. Depends entirely on the balance of earnings / expenses in the couple. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/more-women-are-paying-alimonythat-includes-supporting-their-exs-porn-habit-2018-05-23.

Jon Sandys

Judge Dread - S11-E23

Question: Once her zealousness is uncovered, why isn't Judge Karlin reprimanded for this and disbarred? And her cases looked into to see if any more had ridiculous sentences passed down.

Rob245

Answer: Who says she wasn't? She's only in this episode. Her whole future couldn't have been covered in 40 minutes.

Show generally

Question: Why did they keep changing female ADA's? I personally think Wolf may have been a bad boy and most of them didn't want to play his game.

Rob245

Answer: It was an open secret that Jack McCoy slept with his female assistants. It's reasonable to assume that as he tired of them or they moved on in life, he found a new assistant. In the case of Serena, she became a lesbian and was eventually fired for being too emotionally involved with defendants.

Show generally

Question: There were a few times during the series when the police would be looking for information from, say, a group of prostitutes on the street, or a group of men involved with buying/selling drugs in an alley, or some low level criminal they were questioning. Detective Briscoe would pull out one of his business cards, and announce something like, "this is a get out of jail free card" for the person who would come forward to tell them where to find the person they were looking for, or to identify a photo. I always wondered, would some future police officer or detective investigating some new crime really honor that? What if it was a more serious crime? Or even if it was just another simple drug or prostitution bust, and not something more serious, wouldn't that later officer lose the leverage of that arrest, and maybe the possibility of finding a "bigger fish" or whatever they were trying to do?

Michael Albert

Chosen answer: If the prostitute with the card was arrested, she would likely ask to speak to Briscoe. Briscoe would visit, recognize her, and have her released because of it, if it was simply prostitution or a drug Possession charge. Those crimes mean nothing when looking for a murderer or rapist.

Greg Dwyer

Show generally

Question: Was the TV movie "Exiled" set in real time? I caught the last half hour of it on TV, and at one point, Logan makes a reference to an event from "three years ago"; the film was aired in 1998, and 1995 was Chris Noth's last season on the show.

Cubs Fan

Chosen answer: Yes, it was set roughly three years after the incident that had Logan "exiled".

Show generally

Question: How come Briscoe and Greene and every other cop that works in the precinct can wear suits at the scene of a crime but when other cops from other precincts are also at the crime scene they are wearing uniforms?

Answer: An example of this might be easier to give a reason, but the most likely explanation is that those in police uniform are just regular police while Briscoe, Green are detectives. As for the precinct, the area that they work in is where other detectives work so that would be why so many are dressed in suits as well.

Lummie

Chosen answer: Going from memory: Stone gave a nice deal to the star witness against Masucci. He gave some deal to Beigel, the brother-in-law. The witness lied under oath: he was in the hospital and could have never heard the conversation he claimed he did. There was a mistrial declared, jeopardy had attached (Masucci could not be retried for the same crime) and Stone was bound by the deal he gave Biegel, and to the witness. Everyone won, except Stone. The testimony was planned.

Rlvlk

Show generally

Question: What were the cases that the so-called "honorable" William Wright was presiding over and why did he reverse the verdicts?

Answer: William Wright has been in 4 episodes of Law & Order as an judge. They were "Damaged", "Gunshow", "Harm" and "Dissonance". I believe "Gunshow was the only episode he reversed a verdict. That was because the evidence presented did not meet the guidenlines set at the start of the trial and the evidence wasn't conclusive enough to link the gun manufacturers to the crime itself.

Lummie

If I remember correctly there was also an episode where he also reversed the verdict on two teenage boys who were found guilty of raping a girl because according to Wright, "She probably enjoyed it."

Gunshow - S10-E1

Question: In regards to the judge's rules for the case at the end with the gun manufacturers, can someone explain what he McCoy had to prove? It was something about that he had to prove that the gun manufacturer designed the gun to made as was the use. Does this mean they had to prove it was going to be used for deadly force because of the fault in the guns? It just sounded strange because they were gun manufacturers so I wasn't too sure why they had to prove that.

Lummie

Chosen answer: McCoy had to prove that the gun manufacturers knew that they gun was being used illegally and that all it took was a simply adjustment. He had to prove that they knew that they (the gun manufacturers) would sell more guns because of the faulty design.

shortdanzr

Answer: According to the IMDB, the voiceover is provided by Steven Zirnkilton, who also provided the oppening voiceovers for the other Law & Order series, as well as for the 2003 revival of Dragnet.

J I Cohen

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.

More mistakes in Law & Order

Det. Lennie Briscoe: I'm trying to decide what to arrest you for - obstruction of justice, harboring a fugitive or just being a general pain in the ass.

More quotes from Law & Order
More trivia for Law & Order

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