I know this is a TV show and might belong in the cafe but the question isn’t exclusively about the show but more about how well it reflects the legal system.
Jack McCoy seems to make a living getting convictions for people who didn’t do it but was somehow involved in it.
He got some female CEO convicted even when another woman confessed to the shooting.
He got his former classmate convicted for listening to organized crime talk about something.
He indicted his good friend because she, while representing a client, unknowingly delivered the address of someone who was later killed. The client pretended that the address was that of someone who would help his case.
He got an lawyer on 15 counts of conspiracy because he wouldn’t breach his attorney client privilege to disclose a location.
I mean I know it’s sensationalized for ratings but are those instances far cries from the real legal system?
I haven’t watched L&O in long time as I reached procedural burnout a few years ago, but in many L&O scenarios they often create a case that launches off of an existing real life case or ruling (“Ripped from the headlines!”) and take it to absurd lengths. In almost all cases this requires (1) a Judge who (after some pushback) is willing to go along with his absurd arguments and (2) a jury willing to swallow his tortured reasoning.
So yeah it’s possible, but highly unlikely. Having said this many of the cases the L&O scenarios are based on are pretty unusual to begin with, so in the end you never can tell with Judges and juries.
L&O loves to gloss over minor details of a crime that might be detrimental to a good story - like supporting evidence and witnesses.
The biggest gloss is the fact that their trials seem to start within a week or two of the crime, not a year or two. A lot can happen in 12 months.
Also, they seem to love trying the picky stretch interpretations of the law. If the lawyer accidentally carries a message that he did not know would result in death or witness tampering, I suspect the only thing that might happen would be a Bar disciplinary hearing and reprimand. I see no hint of a crime.
For example, Martha Stewart was charged with stock fraud along with other charges in her little fiasco. The DA said that her full-page ads declaring her innocence were attempts to manipulate her company’s stock on the theory that if she stated her innocence and people believed her, her company’s stock would go up. This one was tossed by the judg before the trial.
Another case I read about, the police charged a defendant with obstruction for lying to his own lawyers. They claimed he told them a lie knowing full well they would repeat it to the police - therefore he intended to mislead the police. That also was tossed by the judge immeediately.
A lot of these cases, where they charge, say, a CEO because they approved a company’s action that had bad consequences… push the limits of legal liability and probably would not work.