CSI shows should be more realistic...murder is much easier...

There was a thing about unsolved murders on the History channel the other day..... did a pretty good job of explaining how a case can fail to come together.

 

CSI -the show is a little far fetched, but you would be surprised how detail oriented alot of detectives are. Ours here are pretty good. But unfortunately murder is very easy to get away with if you really plan it. Just thinking out all details well in advance and patience!! Not that I am a murderer or want to kill anyone. Not the case.

 

I really hate C.S.I. , if you watch shows like Law and Order the bad guy gets away every so often (its a fact of life, sometimes people in the wrong luck out).

I hate how they get the suspect in the holding cell and they ALWAYS fall apart or say something to hang themself. For once I would like a CSI episode where a perp gets away with murder, a meticulously planned murder where the CSI people are stumped and don't catch a suspect. At least then it would be more true to life, not 100 murders 100 convictions bull.

 

It's Hollywood not reality But yeah it does get a little repetitive and unrealistic

 

My fiance's brother was in town over Christmas and we watched an episode of CSI Miami. He made some comment about how "yeah, this show is like so realisitc." In that show, the ME wears Prada, the people are all buff and they have this ulta-super-high-tech office. I just shook my head.

The next night we watched an episode of "The First 48" on A&E and this was about the REAL Miami homicide squad. Crappy desks, crappy building, day old coffee and everyone is eating pizza and wearing WalMart clothes. His comment was, "Wow I didn't know it was really like that!"

BTW, "The First 48" is an excellent show. I think it's on Thursday nights.

RMX

 

Yea, they all have Pentagon budgets to spend on lab equipment and $8k per foot ultra modern office space but they NEVER turn on a light. They work in the dark and whenever they are at a crime scene they would rather use a flashlight than a light bulb. Oh, and they drive everywhere in Hummers.

 

I have heard that the nitwits that cannot seperate TV from reality that get on jurys have come to expect that without lab evidence as complete, detailed, certain, and convincing as that stupid show has on every episode it is getting hard to convince them.

Great, now real courts have to live up to the standards set by bad TV shows.

 

I fail to see how increasing the standard for convictions is anything but a good thing.

 

I think what he meant was that there is a potential for bad TV to inadverdently (and ironically) set the bar a bit high, if logic and common sense go out the window when modern forensic science enters the room.

A very bad scenario:

Videotape from 3 different angles clearly shows defendant stabbing victim to death.

Good enough to convict?

1 juror, unable to distinguish between videotape (reality) and TV (fiction) refuses to convict because DNA was contaminated, jus' lahk on Tee-Vee, 'ceptin' fer da bideotape part.

Hey, it could happen.

A more accurate reflection of Brian's concern would be not only this, that and the other, but that and that and that ad nauseum needed for conviction.

Remember, all it takes is one juror...

 

Wanna make a perfect murder? Easy:

Make the body dissapear.
Make sure the body is nowhere to be found in the next 1,000 years.
Cops have tons of things to do.
Without a body there is no murder.
(That's what my cop/detective friend said)

At least the theory works down here

 

Just look at the girl that disappeared in Aruba. No body, no murder, end of story.

 

They just convicted 2 brothers of murder in Michigan last year with no body ever found on blood evidence. Dr. Werner Spitz testified that there was enough blood at the scene to prove that a murder took place. If the body contains 5 liters of blood and 4 of them are on the ground there is a body somewhere. Again last year they convicted 2 other men of a 2 murders fom 1985 in the northern part of Michigan with no bodies present. They say that they killed 2 friends and ran them through a tree chipper and fed them to some hogs (yummy). So you can be convicted of murder without a body ever being found, habeas corpus no longer applies.

 

Law & Order Criminal Intent is a little far-fetched too, with the all-known Detective Goren... If all detectives were really that smart, then awesome, that would be fabulous... But CI is a little over the top... SVU, however, is great...

 

Was the dead person not imprisoned lawfully?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus

 

Vincent D'Onofrio is great as Goren! You know he was "the bug" in "Men in Black" & the freaky murderer in "The Cell". I think Detective Munch rivals him in Law & Order SVU but is too sarcastic to be obvious. At least L&O CI doesn't stretch scientific investigative techniques like in CSI. Hey, remember William Peterson in "Live & Die in LA"?

 

Habeas corpus applies to accused persons, not victims. Its meant to present the body of the accused with a charge or realese me. Common misconception.

 

There are lots of types of evidence. I'd hate to see good cases go bad because we cannot put a scientist on the stand with an absolute positive DNA match, when we have the Pope, 2 Rabbi's and a bunch of Monks as eye witnesses.

Not to mention the fact that using that logic we can raise it so high we never get convictions.

 

Kidnap someone and throw them into a steel mill plant's molten metal (think Terminator style). Nothing gets left behind unless there's video tape...