"Judge Hiller assigns Lindsay the repugnant task of defending nun-killer
Michael Kingston. Lindsay discovers the police search that found the body
was unconstitutional, and against all her morals, moves that Kingston be
released. Helen delivers an impassioned argument, stating that the
Constitution was designed to protect the innocent, a category that doesn't
include Kingston. In the end, Judge Hiller has no choice but to strike the
body from evidence, and dismiss the charges." What's this? Episode 53 of
ABC's "The Practice," as synopsized on epguides.com, is what it is, first
broadcast on March 28, 1999, and recently repeated. "The Practice," about a
law firm, is produced by David Kelley, formerly a writer out of the Steve
Bochco stable. The show is regarded as a cultural provender of rare quality,
basking in the soft glow of liberal approval. Awards enhance the producer's
office wall, including an Emmy for "Outstanding Drama Series." The ABC web
site purrs complacently that "this series brings a freshness to the
courtroom drama franchise (!) by focusing on the complexity and moral
ambiguity of our legal system."
Let's take a closer look at the complexity and moral ambiguity of episode
53. A nun is hacked to pieces by a depraved killer, but the cop who found
her body allegedly violated the Fourth Amendment's protections against
unreasonable searches and seizures. The attorney representing the heinous
killer argues that the corpse must be suppressed as evidence. The prosecutor
argues that the search was constitutionally permissible, and that the
exclusionary rule is nonsense in any event.
The judge duly gives a big speech to the effect that the Fourth Amendment
has been perverted. She says it's awful to be forced to exclude evidence.
Then, she rules that the illegally observed evidence must indeed be
suppressed. The killer is turned loose, while the nuns in the audience gasp.
The prosecutor and defense counsel (who is her best friend) embrace each
other, and sob over what's happened. Across the nation, fans of "The
Practice" wag their heads in dour agreement that the Bill of Rights and
kindred protections should be shoved in the trash can.
Jim Fahey, a criminal-defense attorney in Eureka, Calif., with the rare
distinction of having gotten three homicide convictions reversed in the last
five years, tells me there isn't a judge in the country who would have ruled
in the defense's favor in the circumstances portrayed in episode 53. Linda
Fullerton, a criminal-defense attorney in the East Bay who got the Ruth
Young Award last year from the Bay Area's Women Defenders, agrees: "The only
time you ever win those kinds of motions is on something like a case
involving one rock of crack. A dead nun? No judge would ever suppress that.
Anyway, when was the last time the Fourth Amendment counted? It's very, very
rare that any major piece of evidence is excluded based on violation of the
Fourth Amendment. If the writers of "The Practice" had been serious and
knowledgeable, they would have had the judge find an exception to the Fourth
Amendment, and let the evidence in."
So, here we have a "quality" show designed to make viewers suspicious of
constitutional protections, and of the morals of criminal-defense attorneys.
Other shows habituate viewers to the idea that cops can be effective
guardians of the peace only if they trample on such protections. It was not
always so. If one watches reruns of "Perry Mason" and "The Fugitive," one
finds that police were often portrayed unsympathetically on the former, and
usually on the latter. But for years now, we've been subjected to a Niagara
of pro-police propaganda on TV shows, 11 o' clock news reports and in the
newspapers, such material providing the mulch for our present police
culture.
Yet, while these shows portray defense lawyers as sleazeballs,
constitutional protections as obstructions to true justice, and prosecutors
as imbued with virtue, the credentials of law enforcement and the justice
system are coming under increasing and well-deserved scrutiny.
So far as the police are concerned, scarcely a day goes by without one
coming across some fresh outrage, like the case of Patrick Dorismond, first
the object of attempted entrapment, then, of lethal assault by undercover
cops in Rudolph Giuliani's New York (his killer turned out to have at least
one dog-shooting in his past, along with charges of domestic abuse, later
withdrawn, against his wife).
Police perjury is epidemic. Cops themselves jovially call it "testilying."
Racism is endemic, too. Remember the police-radio broadcasts after the King
beating, showing cop after cop, over an extended period of time, making
straight-up racist remarks about "towel-head Indians" and "gorillas in the
mist"? Not so long ago, Los Angeles had a police chief, Daryl Gates, who
said blacks had a problem with chokeholds because their blood vessels are
different.
Whenever people speak out about our burgeoning police state, they get
whacked by defenders of the blue knights, who claim that the majority of
cops are good guys. Remember how many times we all heard the word
"aberration" after the King beating? A lot of these apologists are, like the
producers of "The Practice," boomers who once professed to being
"anti-establishment" but who have spent their mature years in atonement.
Our prisons are crammed with non-violent offenders, many of them serving
excessively long sentences, in barbaric conditions, often convicted on the
word of snitches, victims of the vastly inflated public hysteria about
crime, fanned by Hollywood, TV news and the press. Smart people produce "The
Practice," and other series in the same genre. They should catch up with
reality, and deal with the genuine crises in the justice system, which have
nothing to do with exclusionary rules getting nun-killers off the hook.
To find out more about Alexander Cockburn and read features by other
columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at
www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2000 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
