History HollywoodLaw / LiveActionTV

*** {{Justified}} in a sense. At that point, still halfway through the episode, the judge remains one of the possible hitman contractors, so the writers don't want to clinch the real culprit right away.

** In the season 21 premiere, Nick is arrested for the murder of a man who had exploited his family as a child. What actually happened was that he went to the man's house intending to kill him, but couldn't bring himself to do it after beating him up, so he went to a bar and got drunk. He then went along with the FBI's accusations because he believed that his sister had killed the man after he left and he wanted to protect her. After the team gets a confession from the person who really killed the man, Nick is released from prison and returned to duty. In real life, clearing Nick of murder would not change the fact that he had broken into a man's house, committed an act of premeditated assault and attempted to murder him, so the fact that he was unsuccessful in committing the actual murder would have gotten him a reduced sentence at best rather than being released. And an ex-cop with a record like that would likely never be allowed to carry a badge again.

** "Hubris": A warrant is issued to search the suspect's apartment but the courier hasn't brought it yet. Knowing the suspect will get there before the warrant, Det. Green sticks a toothpick in his lock to keep him from entering. The courier arrives a few seconds later and the police bust in and seize a videotape of the murders. The judge tosses the tape since the police secured the area before they had the warrant (even though they had reason to believe he'd destroy the evidence and were well aware the warrant had been issued) -- but in reality, it is ''totally'' legal to secure a scene if there's a concrete possibility that the evidence will be removed, destroyed, or otherwise endangered before the search warrant arrives; what the police ''can't'' do is actually start the search process before the warrant arrives.[[note]]As an example, if the police had strong reason to suspect that a criminal had evidence on his computer, they could secure the location and prevent the suspect from touching it; they just couldn't actually fire it up and look at the contents until the warrant arrived.[[/note]]

* HollywoodLaw/BlueBloods
* HollywoodLaw/Daredevil2015

* ''Series/AmericanGods'': The detective in "Lemon Scented You" keeps asking Shadow questions even after he repeatedly asks for a lawyer, which means anything which he tells her can't be used as evidence. However, she does make it clear that she's more interested in finding out who tipped her off than prosecuting two small-time swindlers.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone2002'': "How Much Do You Love Your Kid?" revolves around an ImmoralRealityShow that kidnaps ''children'' and forces their loved ones to solve puzzles to recover them (and earn the prize money) or else ''they will never be seen again'', and something ''this'' insane can be allowed by a single parent without any knowledge (let alone consent) from the other. Even the closest approximation to the Trope in RealLife still requires the consent of both parents if children are involved and cannot put them in the kind of danger an adult can consent to (read: potentially lethal).

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone2019'': In [[Recap/TheTwilightZone2019S1E5TheWunderkind "The Wunderkind"]]. Numerous liberties are taken with regards to American law.
** Raff convinces Oliver to run for president even though he is only eleven years old. They get around the presidential age requirement by having Oliver's mother serve as his proxy -- but then that would make ''her'' the President of the United States and render Oliver's presidential demands impotent.
** Oliver's first act after being sworn in as President is to give free video games to everyone, and he plans to get the VideoGameCompanies to comply by threatening a surcharge tax of one million dollars per console "and put them out of business in a day." Unfortunately, the annual budget isn't created until October of the next fiscal year...
** President Oliver tells his staff to pass a law: "no old doctors." This comes to pass somehow, even though legislation begins with Congress, not the White House.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "Special Service", after John Selig discovers that [[TrumanShowPlot he has been secretly filmed for five years and is the subject of a hit cable TV show]], he demands that it be taken off the air as he has rights. The JSTV executive Arthur Spence gives John a copy of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights and sarcastically asks him to point out where it says that they can't put his life on TV. John counters that this is a technicality. John's right though -- he has rights, and they can't film him secretly nor make use of his name/image without permission; ''most'' laws, in fact, aren't enshrined in the Constitution/Bill of Rights, but that doesn't make it okay to disregard them. He could get an injunction forcing them to stop. (They do ultimately stop after he insists, and give him a million dollars for the profit they'd made off him.)
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E146IAmTheNightColorMeBlack I Am The Night Color Me Black]]" Jagger is publicly executed on May 25, 1964. The last person to be publicly executed in the United States was Rainey Bethea in Owensboro, Kentucky on August 14, 1936. Note, however, that May 25, 1964 was actually two months in the future when this episode originally aired, thereby placing the customary ''Twilight Zone'' change in societal norms not in the usual alternate reality but a ''very'' near future US.

* ''Series/AllRise'': "Fire and Rain" sees stolen property excluded as evidence because it was obtained through a search warrant with an error (the wrong witness' name). However, this is covered by the "good faith exception" to the exclusionary rule, as the police didn't know there was a problem with the search warrant, so they didn't commit intentional misconduct. Further, Lola also meets ''ex parte'' with the defense attorney, a huge no-no since both sides must be privy to any discussions during the case. Admittedly it was about personal matters, though given how involved emotionally they still are this brings up another issue, that Lola might not be impartial toward his client and should recuse herself (this applies to other cases too-for instance her close friend Mark is a prosecutor who frequently appears before her, including in the case here, which wouldn't be allowed in reality to avoid accusatons of bias toward him).

** In "Crush", the DA forces Detective Benson to arrest a teenage girl on child porn charges (for "sexting" pictures of herself) in an effort to coerce her into testifying against an attacker. When she does so, the DA attempts to drop the charges, but the judge overrules her and sentences the girl to several years in prison. While the end of the episode reveals that the judge was corrupt, this has two problems. First, the arrest was an obvious case of Malicious Prosecution, which is a felony, and was one of the few cases (it's a notoriously difficult charge to prove in most jurisdictions) in which it would be an open and shut case. Second, even in juvenile court, the judge has no power to do any of that.

** One episode had Jack [=McCoy=] team up with a judge to get a drunk driver convicted of multiple counts of first-degree murder as part of the judge's crusade. Jack goes so far as to blackmail one witness into being out of the country during the trial and suppresses all evidence that the guy was drunk off his rocker when he committed the crime, with the judge {{DeusExMachina}}ing on Jack's behalf all the way. Fortunately, during the trial, [[WhatHaveIDone Jack comes to his senses]], and starts to show the evidence that the guy was drunk (and so was guilty of Manslaughter, but not murder). The only reason the judge didn't report Jack's abuses in the trial was because he was in as deep. In that one, at least, they acknowledge that what [=McCoy=] and the judge were doing was wrong, and it's brought up several times later on as an example of [=McCoy's=] willingness to engage in misconduct if he thinks he can get away with it. In recent years, though, lots of drunk drivers ''have'' started to face murder charges, so they could do this legally if the episode were written more recently.

* Happens all the time in ''Series/{{Arrow}}''.
** One obvious example from the first season is the VillainOfTheWeek arranging for a lawsuit against him to be judged by a man whose reelection campaign he funded. Everyone acts like this guarantees his victory rather than guaranteeing the verdict be instantly overturned on appeal due to the judge having a conflict of interest, and said villain also getting additional sanctions and criminal charges against him.
** In season 2, Laurel Lance is the prosecuting attorney for Moira Queen's trial. The conflict of interest would guarantee the conviction get overturned on appeal, considering not just that she is the ex-girlfriend of the defendant's son (who publicly cheated on Laurel with her sister, leading to said sister's death) but also the fact that her boyfriend was one of the victims. In fact, even the fact that the trial was in Starling City is suspicious, and would probably require a change of venue, because it would be impossible for Moira to get an unbiased jury in the city she tried to destroy.
** In the opening of the seventh season, [[spoiler:Oliver Queen AKA Green Arrow is]] sentenced to prison. Even though they handed themselves over to a federal agent in the previous season, it doesn't stretch disbelief to see them in the same prison as some of the Arrow's previous collars, since their crimes were (almost) all committed in Star City. However, it ''does'' stretch disbelief to see them housed with the general population (genpop) instead of in a more secure portion of the prison given the enormous number of people who absolutely will try to kill them every second of the day.

* ''Series/TheGoodPlace'': The police officer who arrests Pillboy downplays his role in the robbery, saying that he might get probation as Jason was the "brains" of the operation. In Florida, Pillboy is more likely to get up to 15 years for committing a robbery (that resulted in the death of his co-conspirator), or life (if he had a weapon).

* ''Series/GothamKnights2023'': While some prisoners have spent a long time awaiting execution in the US, ''fifty years'' (as [[spoiler:Joe Chill]] does) is pretty unlikely without either being executed or having his sentence commuted. Here, it's ascribed to the Court of Owls' influence, keeping him alive for their purposes until he's [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness deemed useless at last]].

*** The arresting officer states "within reason". Random strangers stopping any crime, much less a mugging, is not reasonable, especially'' when a police officer is at the scene the entire time.

* ''Series/Supergirl2015'':
** In "[[Recap/Supergirl2015S1E9BloodBonds Blood Bonds]]" apparently, Maxwell Lord can just kick federal agents out of an active crime scene, because he says it's his building. Even Alex seems skeptical of this, though it is somewhat justified—Lord was the victim of the crime, and can choose not to cooperate, and the DEO's secretive nature means they can't counter his claim that it was industrial espionage without revealing itself.
** In "[[Recap/Supergirl2015S2E3WelcomeToEarth Welcome To Earth]]" PlayedForLaughs. Kara thinks that almost letting the President get killed is "misdemeanor treason."
** In "[[Recap/Supergirl2015S3E12ForGood For Good]]" Edge is arrested shortly after confessing on tape. Thing is, there's no other evidence against him, so his lawyer will be able to easily get him off by claiming that the confession was forced. Based on his reactions, Edge knows he won't stay in jail for long.
** "[[Recap/Supergirl2015S4E13WhatsSoFunnyAboutTruthJusticeAndTheAmericanWay What's So Funny About Truth, Justice And The American Way?]]". The previous episode made it clear that the President's staff had found a loophole, that Lockwood couldn't be charged because the Patriot Act doesn't apply to aliens. This episode refers to it multiple times as a pardon instead. If you can't be charged, you don't need a pardon.
** "[[Recap/Supergirl2015S4E18CrimeAndPunishment Crime And Punishment]]":
*** Even under martial law, the military just can't go in and kill an entire prison of civilians hunting down ''one'' enemy -- it'd be a war crime of the highest order. But then again President Baker has never cared about such niceties.
*** Blatantly discriminatory means in enforcing martial law Baker announces are unconstitutional as well, but again he likely isn't concerned.
** "[[Recap/Supergirl2015S4E19AmericanDreamer American Dreamer]]". As a Cabinet Secretary, Lockwood's house should have a security detail to prevent his family being attacked.
** "[[Recap/Supergirl2015S5E01EventHorizon Event Horizon]]":
*** The non-compete agreement that's so important to the dramatic conflict from this episode is actually ''specifically'' unenforceable in the state of California. This fact is frequently cited as being one of the major "secrets" behind the success of Silicon Valley, making tech employees able to switch jobs and share ideas with ease. In real life Andrea also wouldn't be able to give all the reporters 3-year contracts with non-compete clauses without their knowledge or agreement. They would need to knowingly sign them, and something inserted later wouldn't be binding.
** There's mention of a special election for US Senate. While the US House of Representatives, aka the "People's House," would have special elections to fill vacancies, Senate vacancies are filled by the governors of the several states appointing a replacement, who normally serves until the next regular election time.
** "[[Recap/Supergirl2015S5E8TheWrathOfRamaKhan The Wrath Of Rama Khan]]". Or rather, law enforcement. Even if the FBI believes that Lena was acting under duress, you'd think they would at least want to bring her in for questioning. Instead, they let her go without further issue.
** In "[[Recap/Supergirl2015S5E15RealityBytes Reality Bytes]]" Nia and Kara act like it's a sure thing Greg will serve time for assaulting Yvette. However, without more evidence (which the police might uncover, like video tape from security cameras nearby) it would still be just her word. Sadly, transphobia exists in the courts too and just the testimony of the victim is not guaranteed for a conviction.
** "[[Recap/Supergirl2015S6E9DreamWeaver Dream Weaver]]" has one. In the United States, judges do not have the power to pardon a convicted criminal. This may have been a flub by the character though (e.g. the judge overturned his conviction or ordered an early release)..