One girl is in a coma, and three other people are dead thanks to a very nasty guy who is also an alcoholic and habitual drunk driver with a suspended license.
When Assistant D.A. McCoy gets the case, he talks a lot about getting real justice for the victims, and he rants and raves about the victims of DUI. McCoy and District Attorney Adam Schiff, and the judge on the case are all on a mission to make sure the drunk driver/killer gets the maximum conviction and prison time.
During the whole episode, McCoy's junior assistant, played by Carey Lowell, is harping, whining, and bitching about every standard legal tactic that is intended to get a conviction. She wants a more lenient result, based on what her interpretation of the law is. Eventually, she keeps telling McCoy he is unethical so much that McCoy backs down, and punks out, like he usually does.
I never liked the character of D.A. McCoy, the blow-hard who is always talking big like he thought he was Moses with the Ten Commandments. Most of the time, McCoy ends up backing down from whatever he says. I guess it is accurate that a lawyer is portrayed as a gutless, self-serving bureaucrat.
In this case, at the end of the trial McCoy torpedoes his own case by introducing evidence that the drunk driver was too drunk to know what he was doing. So much for the three dead victims that McCoy was so concerned about. He let his assistant scare him into destroying his own case. So much for Justice for the dead victims, and the girl in the coma.
The message in this episode is that Justice for the victims depends on the personal relationships between the prosecutors, the judge, and office politics. Nobody in this episode really cared about the dead victims, or the girl in a coma; and that is the tragedy.
When Assistant D.A. McCoy gets the case, he talks a lot about getting real justice for the victims, and he rants and raves about the victims of DUI. McCoy and District Attorney Adam Schiff, and the judge on the case are all on a mission to make sure the drunk driver/killer gets the maximum conviction and prison time.
During the whole episode, McCoy's junior assistant, played by Carey Lowell, is harping, whining, and bitching about every standard legal tactic that is intended to get a conviction. She wants a more lenient result, based on what her interpretation of the law is. Eventually, she keeps telling McCoy he is unethical so much that McCoy backs down, and punks out, like he usually does.
I never liked the character of D.A. McCoy, the blow-hard who is always talking big like he thought he was Moses with the Ten Commandments. Most of the time, McCoy ends up backing down from whatever he says. I guess it is accurate that a lawyer is portrayed as a gutless, self-serving bureaucrat.
In this case, at the end of the trial McCoy torpedoes his own case by introducing evidence that the drunk driver was too drunk to know what he was doing. So much for the three dead victims that McCoy was so concerned about. He let his assistant scare him into destroying his own case. So much for Justice for the dead victims, and the girl in the coma.
The message in this episode is that Justice for the victims depends on the personal relationships between the prosecutors, the judge, and office politics. Nobody in this episode really cared about the dead victims, or the girl in a coma; and that is the tragedy.