Off on a Technicality: Difference between revisions

** Scorpio was wearing a balaclava when he attacked Harry. Harry searched his room without a warrant (because he thought he was running out of time to save the girl) invalidating the weapons found there.

*** Scorpio can still be physically identified by Harry despite the balaclava (by voice, and by the fact that Scorpio has a knife wound identical to the one Harry inflicted on the kidnapper). Furthermore, Harry's warrantless search of Scorpio's room, although technically illegal by current law, ''would'' have been legal under case law at that time—as a person unlawfully squatting in a business property (the stadium), by 1972 law Scorpio has no reasonable expectation of privacy, therefore a warrant is not required for search and seizure.

* The Sally Field movie ''Eye For An Eye'' has this as its premise, as a woman who loses her daughter to a rapist tries to get him behind bars, but seeks her own kind of justice on him after he gets off on a technicality. The tagline of the movie is "What do you do when justice fails?" (become the star of ''[[Brothers and Sisters]]''?) In [[Real Life]], at the very least, the killer's constant making faces at Field would earn him a bunch of "contempt of court" charges.

** Also, in the film the killer got off because the prosecution didn't disclose some evidence—before he got to trial! In [[Real Life]], it would probably mean a reprimand, them getting ordered to reveal that...and going on to trial.