Plot hole: During the beginning moments when the couple go to the top floor, as they are going to the roof they discover a lot of smoke on the penthouse floor which leads them to seeing the charred corpse in the hallway. The only problem is that with the smouldering body wouldn't it have set off the smoke alarm or fire alarm? The building is a very posh apartment block and they are on the penthouse floor making the likelihood something as basic as a fire alarm would be triggered. The killing was more in the heat of the moment and most likely the killer burned the body then and there making the probability of a lot of fire on the floor very high. Even if the woman had been burnt somewhere else and brought back to the floor there is no way the smoke around wouldn't at least have set off the fire alarm or sprinklers.
Law & Order (1990)
1 plot hole in season 13 - chronological order
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.
Det. Lennie Briscoe: You know, if I didn't already know you don't have kids, I'd know you don't have kids.
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.
Question: What is a mistrial?
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.
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.
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.