Can't look away.

I'm still watching InJustice, usually early in the morning while I pedal my road bike on the trainer. And it's getting better. The episode a few weeks ago, in which the National Justice Project was attempting to stop an execution, had me sobbing uncontrollably over my handlebars. Sure, David Swain tearing through the halls of the California Supreme Court at midnight was a little dramatic. But the court repeatedly telling him that he'd had his shot at postconviction relief, and that finality mattered far more than the fact that the team had found the real killer, that's pretty much dead-on. Which, of course, sucks, but that's another issue.

I remain irritated with the show's stupid mistakes (this week's epidode featured a wrongfully convicted couple serving "30 to life" in a federal prison. There are no indeterminate federal sentences, at least not imposed in the past 20 years). Its cavalier use of the term "habeas" and disregard for what a "habeas" actually involves also irks me (at least once per episode, someone says "that gives us enough for a habeas" or "we're going to go in with a habeas and get a hearing").

But the zeal and determination and compassion with which the team pursues its cases is engrossing. I'm even starting to like Kyle MacLachlan's pompous Swain, particularly after he fell on his sword to free one of his clients this week.

The real appeal, though, is that these guys almost always win. And, you know, it's nice to at least imagine a world in which the wrongfully convicted can frequently and with relative ease be freed.

Comments

[mj]

I've been wondering if you still watch! I've seen most of the episodes and I pretty consistently spend the first 2/3s of the show self-righteously exclaiming why this bit is wrong and why "that would never really happen," and then, without fail, I cry at the end.