Liveblogging Raising the Bar: Episode Penultimate
Second to last episode of our favorite criminal justice show is on at 10pm! Be sure to check in
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about 1 year ago
“he never does any research, does he?”
If the producers want to show the audience that, say, the case law on impossible attempts is dumb, it’s much more dramatic to have Jerry lose a motion in court than to have Jerry explain the caselaw to the client. This is Fiction Writing 101: Show, don’t tell.
A show like House has the same problem: Half the episodes should end at the 40 minute mark as one of the staff says, “Hey, maybe this is just like that weird case we heard about in med school where…”
House gets around this problem by fictionalizing the discovery, with Dr. Greg House standing in for the original doctors. RtB can’t get away with Judge Kessler making law in every episode, so…Jerry never seems prepared.
I think all you lawyers will just have to get used to this, unless the show starts to focus more on the procedural details and less on the broad legal issues.
about 1 year ago
Windy-I think your comment sorta misses the point that the lawyers watching are ultimately trying to express. That is….this particular show was held out to be one that would portray public defenders in a more realistic light. It’s not something that CAN’T be done, it just isn’t being done to the satisfaction of the public defenders who are actually watching the show.
There are some very basic, very common things that all public defenders go through day in and day out that, no matter what jurisdiction they are in. I have yet to see much of it….thus, my expectations of the show have not been met.
For example:
All of my clients are not innocent, well dressed, articulate, willing to discuss their case, happy with my legal strategy, convinced to plea just because it’s in their best interests, etc….
Why not show the clients as the mixed bag that they truly are? That’s one of the main things that separates the public defenders from the private bar, we CAN’T choose our clients. We are stuck representing them no matter what they present or confront us with.
In my mind, the show is depicting a distorted view of the average public defender client in a major US city.
Does the show convince me that Jerry truly cares about his clients, absolutely, but what’s not to like about any of them?
Conversely, the state doesn’t always have an easy client to represent either. Most noteably, gang shootout cases. Every major city has these. Neither side has a client that they can present as worthy of respect, but BOTH sides are forced into it. Why not show the difficulties the prosecutors sometimes have to deal with when they too must represent a victim like a dead gang banger and his surviving family? That’s actually an easier angle to sell the public on “why we do what we do”…the state often times has to do the same, exact thing.
I think a deeper focus on “the clients” (from a PD perspective) and “the people” (from a prosecution perspective) would bring more credibility to the show and leave people challenging their own pre-conceived notions of why ANY of us do what we do.
Hopefully, next season, there can be a greater emphasis on that aspect.
As for stuff like case citations being accurate, I think that’s going a bit overboard. If basic legal principles are followed and deviated from to make a particular point, I’m fine with that in terms of satisfying the “realistic” expectation.
I guess the last thing I’d say is the casting could be better. I’m just not believing the bi-sexual turned gay character at all. He seems more suited to portray a hard core prosecutor with no conscious.
If it were my show, I’d hire a exonerated person to oversee the casting & scripting of “clients” and bring a realistic perspective to how they are portrayed.
Off my soap box…
about 1 year ago
I was making a very specific point about Gideon’s remark that “he never does any research, does he?” which I quoted at the top of my comment.
Back in episode 6, Jerry’s client took a deal, and we later find out that the complaining witness was already dead and the prosecutor knew it. Jerry tries to undo the deal, but the prosecutor cites Jones as precedent and Jerry loses. You all were disappointed that Jerry seemed unaware of Jones and then didn’t try to distinguish.
I assumed Gideon’s remark about Jerry never doing research was about Jerry’s similar lack of knowledge or ability to distinguish when it came to whatever case was cited for the impossible attempts ruling.
I wanted to point out that in order for the show to tell viewers about some of the stranger rulings, it works better dramatically if the cases happen to Jerry’s client. But if Jerry is aware of the case, then all we’ll get is a lot of talk about case law instead of seeing the case happen. So, for dramatic reasons, Jerry gets surprised by case law a lot.
As for the rest of the issues you raise, I’ve been lurking around the crimlaw defense blogs long enough that I’ve spotted a few of those issues myself. Where’s the client who thinks Jerry’s a public pretender working for the prosecution? Where’s the client who gets 25-to-life knocked down to almost nothing and still hates his PD because he has to spend 6 more months in jail? Where’s the client who ignores every single piece of advice and then blames his lawyer for his harsh sentence? Where are the families that call twice a day, every day?
It would be nice to see some rough edges.
about 1 year ago
Gotcha, my bad! I see what your saying now.
And yes… those issues you raise at the bottom of your post are pretty universal with PD’s all across the country. Why not weave those common threads into the scenes?
In my mind, this is a classic example of “truth is stranger than fiction” and why fix that which isn’t broke. Tell it like it really is and you don’t have to spend time “creating” drama.
I mean, simple, silly stuff, that our clients do is freaking hilarious sometimes when you stop and actually think about it. I understand compromise and all that, but to take that which needs NO compromise and distort reality in the process is basically holding something out to be that which it really isn’t.
I think Gideon was the one who pointed out that the one dude (a few episodes ago) was dressed like he was going to a cricket match across the pond. Those were my same thoughts when I saw what the guy was wearing. Why compromise on something like that? Whoever chose that guys wardrobe CLEARLY has NO clue or connection to the indigent population. Our clients aren’t Rudy Huxtable from the Cosby show! Our clients don’t dress like the characters on the Fresh Prince from Bel Air!
Maybe I missed it, but I have yet to even hear any jail lingo at all….let alone anyone well versed in Ebonics like most all of my clients are. Heck, even my white and hispanic clients speak their own vernacular.
The show needs a good, healthy, dose of raw reality if it considers actual public defenders and criminal defense attorneys part of their main, target audience.