It's Criminal Procedure, Jim, But Not As We Know It...

[major_clanger]

Yes, Law and Order: UK has arrived, and I know how I'm going to be spending my Monday evenings from now on. Because I can do with an hour of alternately snorting with laughter and throwing soft furnishings at the telly.

Even before we get to the legal side of things, there's Jamie Bamber's accent. OK, there's evidence that he actually sounds like that, but after five years of Lee Adama's precise diction on Battlestar Galactica the transition from Apollo to London Copper is a mite distracting. Conversely, Freema Agyeman, by contrast, appears to be playing Martha Jones if she'd done law rather than medicine.

So what of the legal drama itself? Fair enough, I appreciate that you have to simplify and dramatise for the purposes of television drama, and the particular format of the show (crime, police investigation and court case all in one episode) mean that has to happen to an even greater extent than usual. Crown Court it's not, and this episode made it doubly hard on itself by trying to cram in a cracked trial followed by an entirely new prosecution. Having said all that, I would still not count on watching L&O:UK as a substitute for revising from Blackstone's Criminal Procedure, to put it mildly.

Specific quibbles: the first trial happened rather sooner than might be likely; the second ludicrously so, seeing as how it was an entirely fresh indictment. The application to admit evidence of prior convictions on such a tangential basis would indeed have been a tough one to get past a judge, whilst the set-up of the corrupt flat inspector would have been very strenuously objected to as entrapment. And I think we should just be kind and say that the examination in chief and cross-examination were truncated for dramatic purposes.

What did it get right? Well, we saw the difference between Illegal Act Manslaughter and Gross Negligence Manslaughter, the actual cross-examination questions asked were good ones (apart from the whole 'make the jury hate you and by extension your client' bit) and the way in which the CPS has a central role in the decision to charge was nicely brought out. Oh, and I liked the unsubtle reference to the tension between the traditional Bar and employed CPS counsel.

It's early days yet, and I understand that what we're seeing are US plots adapted, as far as they can be, to the English legal system. But like I said this won't win many prizes as legal training material!

Comments

[hatusu.livejournal.com]

Ooh, this sounds like fun! When is it coming to the U.S.? I mean, if it's not an early April fool's joke.

[hatusu.livejournal.com]

Oh, I forgot. Does the opening start with the famous thunk, thunk sound?

[non-trivial.livejournal.com]

That was my number one question when I saw it on the schedules; I can happily confirm that the sound is fully present and correct.

[hatusu.livejournal.com]

Me again. I found this link:
http://british-tv.suite101.com/topiclist/article.cfm/law_order_uk_review_episode_1

[t--m--i.livejournal.com]

Was the fact they actually got a conviction unrealistic? I would have expected the defence to create just enough doubt to confuse the jury and get an acquittal.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

I think they were lucky. The test of culpability for Gross Negligence Manslaughter is a high one; indeed, that's why there's a separate offence of causing death by dangerous driving, because manslaughter is often difficult to prove. I think the judge would have had to give a very carefully-worded direction on the law to the jury to avoid the risk of appeal on the basis that the jury had misunderstood the legal test for the charge in question.

[ceb.livejournal.com]

Completely unrelated... my friend with the dalek problem is uitlander. I've told her to come over here and say hello...