# Sherlock Holmes vs Perry Mason **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 28, 2008, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386 "2008-01-28T23:51:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2008, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/1 "2008-01-28T23:51:35Z")
If Sherlock Holmes, the World’s greatest consulting detective, found you committed a crime, could Perry Mason, the lawyer who never loses a case, get you found not guilty? ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/2 "2008-01-29T00:07:24Z")
Perry Mason specialized in exonerating innocent clients. If you actually committed the crime, his chances of getting you off are probably not as good. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/3 "2008-01-29T00:13:37Z")
[QUOTE=pravnik] Perry Mason specialized in exonerating innocent clients. If you actually committed the crime, his chances of getting you off are probably not as good. [/QUOTE] Yeah. Even though his profession was a defense lawyer, in story terms Perry is a detective too. He just specializes in finding the **REAL** killer. 😃 Of course, either Perry or Sherlock could be wrong at the beginning of the story, and it’d be fun to see a story like this with them pitted against each other (and maybe being forced into working together later.) Couldn’t say who would ‘win’ though - these are detective stories, not comic books dontcha know?? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/4 "2008-01-29T00:35:10Z")
Holmes on the other hand was good at finding the culprit not necessarily proving that he did it. Often the villian in qustion got his just desserts, but many times it was not at the hands of the law. Moriarty went over the falls, the villian in Hound of the Baskervilles was destroyed by his own creation, as was the villian in the Speckled Band. In other cases like the Red-headed League – when you are caught that cold, not even Mason could get the bad guy off. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/5 "2008-01-29T03:23:07Z")
Mason would put Holmes on the stand, and badger him into a confession. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/6 "2008-01-29T03:31:26Z")
Sherlock was likely to get evidence in a manner to have the case thrown out in a U.S. court. No shit Sherlock that’s evidence tampering, and you didn’t have a court order. I would say Sherlock would be the best at finding the real criminal. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/7 "2008-01-29T04:42:32Z")
I think the real question is who you call to fix the tear in the space-time continuum after your hypothetical trial. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/8 "2008-01-29T04:47:53Z")
Mason will badger Holmes until Watson confesses. It’s always the guy least necessary to the plot. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/9 "2008-01-29T04:51:43Z")
Gregory House is brought in as a witness… …I think someone needs to write this. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/10 "2008-01-29T04:55:12Z")
As long as that putz, Hamilton Burger, was prosecuting… ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/11 "2008-01-29T12:49:55Z")
In many of Holmes’ cases , as watson once admitted, there was no actual crime. In a slew of cases, even when there was a crimne, Holmes let the criminal go. as **TV time** notes, even if you were guilty and Holmes found you, you’d be likely to go some other way. Your ship would disappear at sea, or you’d be dead before the end of the case, or you’d go mad, or something. The odds are pretty good that, if Holmes found you out, you wouldn’t ever get to court. I didn’t watchj Perry Mason, or read Gardner’s novels, but I understand that on TV the gu8ilty party often confessed, right in court. Holmes’ villains wouldn’t do that, unless they were on the verge of death already. So the question in the OP really is one of those immovable object/irresistable force kinda things. They can’t exist in the same universe. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/12 "2008-01-29T19:11:47Z")
The real question though, is what would happen if Perry Mason, Sherlock Holmes, and Hercule Poirot teamed up together. ---
**Author:** ![Kuboydal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecb155/32.png) [@Kuboydal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kuboydal)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/13 "2008-01-29T19:56:53Z")
Perry Mason would, on occasion, completely disrupt the process to the point that a guilty party could go free, especially if they were not the worst guilty party in the story and they were also a hot young blonde. I offer no cites, but you trust that I have read far too many of these. ---
**Author:** ![ChiefScott](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58f4c7/32.png) [@ChiefScott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChiefScott)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/14 "2008-01-29T20:02:16Z")
[QUOTE=pbbth] The real question though, is what would happen if Perry Mason, Sherlock Holmes, and Hercule Poirot teamed up together? [/QUOTE] Miss Marple had better watch out! ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/15 "2008-01-29T20:46:15Z")
The TV Mason only took on innocent clients who had circumstantial evidence against them (Rule #1 in a Perry Mason show: Never say you’d like to kill anyone). Holmes would see that the evidence didn’t prove guilt and would see another logical explanation of the facts involved. So he would never be fooled into sending an innocent man to trial and thus Mason would never get the case. The two could co-exist, and Mason would probably hire Holmes to find a better interpretation of the evidence than the DA gives. Gil Grissom would also never put a person in a position to be defended by Mason. He, too, would find that the evidence points to a guilty client – one Mason wouldn’t defend. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/16 "2008-01-29T21:01:30Z")
[QUOTE=spooje] As long as that putz, Hamilton Burger, was prosecuting… [/QUOTE] Yes, as though he were the only prosecutor in L.A. And didn’t finally realize that it’s pointless to prosecute a case where Perry Mason is defending, because Mason’s client always is exonerated. And never seems to pay him. [QUOTE=chrisk] Yeah. Even though his profession was a defense lawyer, in story terms Perry is a detective too. [/QUOTE] Doesn’t Perry Mason have some other guy who does all of his detective work for him? ---
**Author:** ![Kuboydal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecb155/32.png) [@Kuboydal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kuboydal)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/17 "2008-01-29T21:12:30Z")
Paul Drake of the Drake detective agency does much of the footwork for Perry. He is always concerned about maintaining his license. Perry will often not explain anything to DRake so that he can maintain plausible deniability. I’ve never seen the TV Perry. Was it good? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/18 "2008-01-29T21:21:14Z")
[QUOTE=spooje] As long as that putz, Hamilton Burger, was prosecuting… [/QUOTE] I think he must have founded the LA School of Prosecution – since his time it seems they’ve never won a major case. Some comedian told this joke: “I got pulled over for speeding in LA. I killed the cop, figuring it would be easier to beat the murder rap than the ticket.” ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/19 "2008-01-29T21:24:49Z")
[QUOTE=Kythereia] Gregory House is brought in as a witness… …I think someone needs to write this. [/QUOTE] I know it’s a hijack, but has House ever given testimony in court on his own show? And wouldn’t Perry Mason be _hiring_ Holmes to help get his client off? Because Drake couldn’t act as a detective in England? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386/20 "2008-01-29T21:43:52Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Mason would put Holmes on the stand, and badger him into a confession. [/QUOTE] A “consulting” detective? Mister Holmes, have you ever “consulted” under the influence of cocaine? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-holmes-vs-perry-mason/435386.md?page=2)