Since coming to Sick City, Idaho, I’ve been watching television. I don’t care much for television. Nowadays it seems there are only two types of programs. If the program isn’t saturated with adultery, it is saturated with government propaganda. Often, the shows display more than a little of both.
I appreciate the intricacy of dialog, plot and story development in shows like the Law & Orders, the CSIs, and Without a Trace. I am, however, appalled at the blatant disregard for real law and order in these shows.
In every episode there are numerous violations of Due Process. Warrants are issued without conviction. Indictments are used. Arrests are made before trials. Suspects and witnesses alike are harassed, intimidated, coerced, and often physically abused. Investigators trespass in citizens homes and violate property rights. And the list goes on. All in the name of entertainment.
I am also angered by the reception of these shows. The fact that people all over the world are watching these programs and accepting them as accurate representation of the American legal system infuriates me. People watch these shows and believe that’s how law and order works.
Where these shows may be accurate representation of the legal systems in countries such as Great Brittan and Cuba, they do not accurately represent the American legal system.
The American legal system is based on the due process of law under the assumption of innocence until proven guilty. Due Process demands that before a warrant be issued or an arrest be made a court order or conviction must be declared. It also demands that before a court order or conviction can be declared, the defendant has the right to face his accusers and defend himself.
These television programs conveniently forget this despite the readily available legal resources free for anybody to research. I fail to believe these television shows would lose a speck of entertainment value if they represented the real legal system. It is a travesty that the producers and writers are so unimaginative that they choose to deface and misrepresent the most perfect legal system in the world.
It sure is convenient for all those real life police, investigators, attorneys, prosecutors, and other agents of government who can now get away with such crimes. Ah, ignorance is bliss for them now, isn’t it?
