Off on a Technicality: Difference between revisions

* The ABC series ''[[Hardcastle and McCormick]]'' featured a retired judge (Brian Keith) who set out to bring down criminals who were released on technicalities.

** From the judge's ''own court''—even though it is the [[Artistic License: Law|judge himself who rules on such technicalities.]] (While it could be argued that the judge was strictly following the letter of the law despite his personal misgivings, and/or the convictions were overturned on appeal, that's not what the show's [[Opening Narration]] implies.)

* In the final episode of ''[[Homicide: Life On the Street]]'', Bayliss discovers that Luke Ryland, a child molester he'd arrested earlier in the series, had been released because court backlogs had delayed his trial so long that the case was thrown out (On the basis that, at least prior to 9/11, you couldn't just detain someone indefinitely without trial). At the end of the episode, Bayliss quietly packs up his desk and leaves the department, just as two of the other detectives discover the body of Ryland.

* A whole episode of old cop show ''Hunter'' was based on this, when a group of kids spontaneously confessed to killing a girl at a party, before the cops even had a chance to read them their rights. This sparked a vigilante-kills-the-killers plot. In [[Real Life]], the technicality wouldn't have applied in the case of a spontaneous confession; likewise even if the confession were excluded, this would not have the ridiculous effect of letting the suspects go scot-free, or have any other effect.