Word: csi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that anybody believes the crime franchises are worthless. "Believe me," says ABC prime-time entertainment president Stephen McPherson, "we'd love to have CSI. But you've got to play the cards you're dealt, so to speak, and that's what we did." Not surprisingly, CBS chairman Leslie Moonves agrees that the procedural is not dead. "Good shows work," he says. "Bad shows don't. I don't care what type of shows they are." It's unclear whether many will watch ABC's new hits in reruns or syndication, two reasons procedurals are such moneymakers...
Jerry Bruckheimer is the Michael Moore of criminal law. Defense lawyers love his CSI shows because they have caused juries to demand DNA analysis in nearly every two-bit 7-Eleven holdup. Prosecutors, meanwhile, feel hampered by the fact that 10 eyewitnesses are not enough to satisfy CSI-watching jurors who crave the supposedly conclusive proof of hair follicles on a knife...
...CSI, because of its popularity and fecundity, is the most dramatic new influence on a justice system that has always been affected by books, movies and TV. "When Perry Mason first aired, lawyers were not allowed to approach witnesses to question them," says Christopher Stone, director of the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit that promotes innovation in the justice system. "But you couldn't fit Mason and the witness in the same frame, so the directors had Mason walk over and lean on the witness rail. Then juries expected lawyers to do that, and if they didn't, jurors...
...CSI effect has been similarly potent. Last November prosecutors in Galveston, Texas, despite a plethora of nonforensic evidence, couldn't convince a jury that Robert Durst had murdered Morris Black, even though Durst admitted inadvertently killing him, because Black's head couldn't be found. The head, the defense argued, contained key evidence that Durst had acted in self-defense. "The CSI effect is real, and it's profound," says jury consultant Robert Hirschhorn, who also says he purposely selected jurors familiar with CSI and forensics-type shows for the Durst trial...
...those sprays and lasers and high-tech microscopes, it turns out, are expensive. "DNA analysis is used every six seconds on CSI," says Robert J. Castelli, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who was a police officer for 21 years. "To analyze properly a sample of DNA can cost as much as $10,000. You're not going to be using DNA analysis in every burglary." So prosecutors are now spending a lot of time trying to explain to juries that DNA evidence isn't always essential. Joshua Marquis, a pro-death-penalty district attorney in Oregon...