Week seven blog

In this weeks lecture, readings and viewing, we looked into the legal system, courts, film lawyers and how they are portrayed in criminal law films.

In this weeks reading entitled "Film Lawyers: Above and Beyond the Law", Greenfield delves into describing the image of lawyers in crime films and how they are portrayed. The quest for justice seems to be a prominent theme throughout movies, and issues of right and wrong regarding the legal system as often fuzzy and complicated. Lawyers are not always the good guys and the legal system does not always achieve justice. Often times, they are both incompetent, and the images we see of lawyers are not always accurate. Most lawyers in Law films get a good review and try to give justice for their clients in every way possible. Sometimes they fail in their endeavors, but we usually see them in a positive light throughout law film history.

The various types of criminal law films were discussed in Rafters reading this week and she delves into the different types during the different time periods. In the 1930s and 40s there was the law film Noirs where crime films and the lawyers were portrayed as fighting an corrupt system and justice was not always upheld in this case. The scenes and imagery in these movies are dark, mysterious, dirty streets where lawyers have to get down to the nitty gritty realities of crime and fighting for justice. In the 50s and 60s time period we see lawyers being portrayed as heroic as in To Kill a Mockingbird. We see Lawyers as smart, capable, morally good people who are willing to fight for justice at any costs. From the 1970s on we see a decline in the appearance of law films, as well as a decline in quality. The reason given by rafter for this is that issues in the legal system were being worked out, so law films were not as prevelent, reflecting the time period and culture. Rafter does an effective job at outlining the different types of law films throughout the 20th century in America, and shows how ideas about lawyer and the legal system have changed over the years. Lawyers can be portrayed as competent, effective and good, even if it means bending the rules a bit and going around the system to get justice. The justice system can be portrayed as ineffective and also a source of authority. 

After watching Presumed Innocent and discussing it in class, I thought about what Rafter discussed about the decline in law films during this time period. I thought the movie was intriguing, complicated, as well as perplexing in the plot line as well as the ideas that it images and ideas it conveys regarding the legal system, lawyers, law enforcement, and how they go about their jobs and solving crime. This movie gives us a complicated story about the murder of an attorney. She is portrayed as promiscuous with the men in her office and ends up having an affair with one of them (Harrison Ford). His wife is upset and decides to kill her and frame him using every possible method in order to make him look guilty, pointing all evidence that he was the man who committed the crime. She doesn't want him to go on trial and get out of hand, but it does and other attorneys in the office try to convict him of the murder, and use manipulation and deceit to hide and construe the evidence. The judge decides to let the case go, but we don't find out until the end that it was the wife who committed the murder. We are strung along in the movie to believe that maybe he actually did kill this woman he had an affair with. Evidence was also lost and hidden in the film by investigators and police officers. Evidence was overlooked in his house when the police had a search warrant to look for a murder weapon. The twisted plot and makes for an interesting film about crime and the ideas we have about the justice system. There is more corruption in the legal system than we might believe. We assume that lawyers and law enforcement officials are always competent and accurate, but this movie shows us otherwise.

I looked up the Michael Jackson murder trial on CNN.com because i thought it was interesting pertaining to our topic of discussion this week.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/11/justice/california-conrad-murray-trial/index.html?hpt=ju_c1
Conrad Murray is the man accused of accidental manslaughter of Michael Jackson after giving him too much propofol to help him sleep. In court, The pathologist they showed the jury the picture of Michael Jackson's autopsied body showing evidence of a homicide. The pathologist said that it would be an easy mistake to misuse the drug and give an over dosage. Murray has claimed in defense that the overdose was an accident, and that he didn't intend to give him too much, but was actually trying to wean him from the drug, because he supposedly had a dependency on it. Murray said that he didn't know he was also taking other drugs at the time which led to his intoxication and death. If he actually is convicted of involuntary manslaughter, then he could spend 4 years in prison and loose his medical license. This is another trial story in the law that eludes to the messy, complicated legal system that he have. Nothing is usually black and white when convicting someone of murder. sometimes trials last for a long time, even if all the evidence is there, pointing the person, the jury and judge cannot always discern who is innocent or guilty. Sometimes people are wrongly convicted, and technically speaking someone could be innocent, but socially guilty in the public's eyes. Other times, people are let off, when they are guilty and get away with heinous crimes.