Wednesday, February 16, 2011

ADAM SCHIFF IS SOFT ON CRIME: Someone has finally done the public service of gathering conviction rate statistics for the first 10 seasons of Law & Order with charts and graphs galore. We haven't gotten to later seasons yet, so we can't determine whether Arthur Branch's "tough" policies led to a higher conviction rate, whether the retirement of Lenny Briscoe led to more police work that didn't hold up in court, or if Serena Southerlyn had a terrible conviction rate or if she was fired because she was a lesbian. There's much to be dug into here and I trust this audience will do so.

10 comments:

  1. Claire Kincaid had a lousy first season and then became a plea-bargain junkie. Interesting.<span> </span>

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  2. I don't know that this is correlative, since Kincaid's first season was Ben Stone's last, and McCoy took over as EADA.  I suspect that was as much a cause of the change as anything else, since the EADA seemed to be firmly steering when to plead in most cases.  Kincaid was arguably the most defendant-friendly of the prosecutors in terms of background and temperment, though.

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  3. In other words, cranky Stone insisted he could try and win anything; McCoy more of a realist?<span> </span>

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  4. More or less, though McCoy's personality ebbed and flowed a bit depending on who he was paired with (more of a hardass with Kincaid, less so with Carmichael).

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  5. calliekl10:00 PM

    Did Kincaid go back to being a defense attorney after she left the post. or was that Ross? Because that could explain the defense-friendly outcomes.

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  6. Kincaid--killed in car accident while driving a drunk Briscoe home
    Ross--becomes defense attorney and later a judge
    Carmichael--becomes an AUSA
    Southerlyn--Fired, but not because she's a lesbian.
    Borgia--Murdered
    Rubirosa--Moved to LA, and is joining LOLA as the junior DA under Terrence Howard when it returns.

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  7. I can't wait unti they get to L&O:UK because my impression from watching the eps that have aired here is that James Steel may have the worst record of them all.

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  8. Heather K12:20 PM

    so far (through discs one and two on DVD) all the episodes are rehashes of regular schmegular law and order, but I am not actually sure if they all end the same way (now that I think on it).

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  9. isaac_spaceman1:03 PM

    Rainbow.  Double rainbow. 

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