Many intense discussions between the ADA and his various gorgeous female staff members take place on the courthouse steps or at sidewalk hot dog stands.
“Hi, we’re police. May we come in?” If you say, “Not without a warrent” you’re guilty. If you let them in, they’ll find something in plain sight that will prove your spouse guilty.
Don’t get all excited when a liberal judge throws all the evidence against you out of court.
Those crafty DAs will find a precident in “Coyote vs. Roadrunner” to get it all re-admitted.
At least not since the first season.
Good ones, Teaelle. I especially liked the one about the bail judges.
Get a lawyer from out of state, especially the ones who claim they don’t know nothin’ about no big city laws. They’ll win every time.
Get a lawyer who’s prettier than Jack McCoy.
If you’re the killer, don’t flirt with the ADA babe. If you hit on Jamie Ross, she’ll get your telephone number so she can link you to the crime. If you hit on Abbie Carmichael, she’ll hate you forever and make you sure get the needle.
Along the same vein, Detective Goren knows everything about everything. And his partner knows nothing about anything. She’s just there to look hot.
…also, inevitable discovery.
If you’re in the DA’s office talking about a case and the phone rings, even though the DA probably has hundreds of cases on his docket the phone call will inevitably be about the very case that you’re currently talking about.
Yeah, but if you hit on Serena, she’ll probably get it on with you! What does she know?
How does collateral estoppel come up in the criminal context?
And “fruit of the poisoned tree.”
Wasn’t that a Culture Club song?
Maybe. That band sucked 
Seriously, tho, “Fruit Of The Poisoned Tree” is the doctrine that says that any evidence that is improperly obtained cannot be used against the defendant. If the cops searched your house without a warrant, and found a big bag of marijuana under your bed (and if they couldn’t justify the search on other grounds, such as Plain Sight or Hot Pursuit) then the judge would be obliged to refuse to admit that weed as evidence against you.
Heh. You’re thinking of “Church of the Poison Mind.” Peppy little number.
What is double jeopardy, after all, but a specific application of collateral estoppel?
Seriously, collateral estoppel in the criminal law world is rare, mostly because of the existence of double jeopardy law. I have seen it referenced on Law and Order, but the show got it wrong.
As best I recall: A criminal, John Doe, was convicted by Jack McCoy for the murder of Richard Roe, whose body was never found. At trial, there was testimony from an accomplice that the body was dismembered/destroyed/buried in such a way that it couldn’t be recovered. Years later, Roe’s body was discovered in a completely different burial/hiding place, with none of the damage testified to by the accomplice. Based on this new evidence, the original conviction is set aside. McCoy is convinced that Doe is still guilty, and tries him again for the murder. This time, Doe is aquitted.
Now Doe sues McCoy for wrongful prosecution. Doe says McCoy knew that Doe was innocent and vengefully prosecuted him anyway. During the taking of a deposition for this litigation, Doe gleefully points out to McCoy that since the jury acquitted him of the crime, McCoy is collaterally estopped from defending himself by claiming that Doe was, indeed, guilty all along.
I don’t recall how it ended.
Of course, Doe’s claim is wrong on several major fronts, although I seem to remember McCoy was cowed by it on the show. First, collateral estoppel requires an identity of parties. Although McCoy may well have represented the state of New York, he was being sued personally; as a personal defendant, he’s not bound by any issue preclusion that might have arisen between Joe Doe and the State of New York. McCoy is perfectly entitled to relitigate the issue of guilt in his defense. Even if identity of parties were not an issue, the acquittal of Doe doesn’t give rise to collateral estoppel in a subsequent civil case because the burdens of proof are different. While the jury may have found that the state failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, that doesn’t mean that Doe’s innocence by perpondernce of the evidence is established. No estoppel there.
- Rick
I think that was Ben Stone and not McCoy if it’s the one I’m thinking of.
The guy with the unpronounceable name who played the DA on Homicide was the defendant. They managed to find the body and they re-arrested him.
http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/GuidePageServlet/showid-180/epid-9534/
From the episode I was watching last night - take the time to close the curtains before killing someone. Otherwise the body will be discovered by some kids in the building opposite with a telescope.
If you commit a murder, and someone else was even slightly involved, he will roll over on you in a second, even if the evidence against him seems sketchy, and the sentence he agrees to will be almost as long as yours.
As zippy pointed out, the prosecutor in the episode was Stone, not McCoy. Originally, the convicted defendant was granted a new trial based on newly discovered evidence (i.e. the body of the victim in a place other than described in the original trial). Stone was prepared to proceed with the retrial, but then the original witness disappeared. Without that testimony, Doe was acquitted at his retrial, and launched his civil suit.
At the end, it was revealed that Doe had had a prison buddy kill the witness, and it was this crime for which he was re-arrested at the end of the episode. Stone was preparing to go to trial on this new charge, but was willing to cut a deal if Doe confessed to killing the witness and the original victim. Doe resisted the idea and the outcome is left unclear, except that Doe apparantly managed to be acquitted and got himself elected Governor of whatever state hosts the Oswald Maximum Security Prison.
That’s the one! And the “unpronounceable” name, Zeljko Ivanek, is very easily pronounced: Zhel-ko Ee-Vah-nek.
The thing is that the fact that Zeljko’s character, Phillip Swann, brought up collateral estoppel (he was a jailhouse lawyer who was defending himself) was the lynchpin to figuring out that he ordered a hit on the witness against him in the second trial. Stone and Kincaid knew that Swann had been filing motions and whatnot on behalf of other inmates in his unit in prison, so they did a database search on cases involving those inmates and collateral estoppel, got a hit, questioned that guy, and got the goods to go for the second prosecution. Collateral estoppel was the “red helmet” of that episode.