History Series / Conviction2016

** Her mother is a former First Lady running for Senator of New York. She's a well-connected blonde with a legal background. Prior to the re-naming of Hayley Atwell's character (from Carter to Morrisson, to avoid confusion with Atwell's most famous role) she would have been "Harper Carter", or "HC".

* HollywoodLaw: Part of Tess's backstory, mistakenly saying that an innocent man murdered her aunt, makes no legal sense. She had identified him in a line up and testified against him, yet somehow he doesn't know her name or face, so she's able to come up and buy food from him each day for months before finally revealing it? Defendants have the right to confront (i.e. face) witnesses against them, so he would have been sitting in court when she testified. Only in a few cases can a witness be allowed to not face the defendant-mostly sex offenses, which doesn't apply here, and he would still know her name.

* DrowningMySorrows: Sam gets hammered when he realizes he realizes he prosecuted an innocent man.

* FamedInStory: Assorted people immediately recognize Hayes as the tabloid-fodder former First Daughter.

* RefugeInAudacity: After struggling to pretend to be sorry about getting caught with coke in her purse, Hayes finally throws out all pretense and point-blank admits that in a more sane world, she'd be in jail, and the fact that she isn't is proof of how screwed up the criminal justice system really is.

* DownerEnding: In "Mother's Little Burden", the CIU manages to prove that Penny Price is innocent... [[spoiler:but the actual killer was her own daughter, and Penny decides that she'd rather spend the rest of her life in jail than allow the police to lock up her only remaining child.]]

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Hayes Morrison's character is obviously based on someone imagining the result of combining Chelsea Clinton with an overly exaggerated version of George W. Bush's daughters from when they had party-girl reputations..

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Hayes Morrison's character is obviously based on someone imagining the result of combining Chelsea Clinton with an overly exaggerated version of George W. Bush's daughters.

** "A Simple Man" seems to be inspired in part by the case of Brendan Dassey, a developmentally-disabled young man who was one of the subjects of ''Series/MakingAMurderer'', complete with a documentary film crew who has been working on the subject's case following the CIU around.

* CessationOfExistence: Hayes says this happens when you die, telling one death row prisoner he will be "worm food". [[spoiler: She regrets this after he's executed, although she had wished he would go to {{heaven}} like he wanted beforehand.]]

** "A Simple Man" seems to be inspired in part by the case of Brendan Dassey, a developmentally-disabled young man who was one of the subjects of ''Series/MakingAMurderer''.

* FramingTheGuiltyParty: [[spoiler:In order to prevent terrorist Rodney Landon from getting released after discovering he had planned another bombing from the one he was convicted of (but that the evidence for this isn't legally usable), Sam spreads a rumor in the prison that Landon is getting released because he snitched on other inmates. This causes them to attack him and he naturally fights back, stabbing another prisoner and insuring he'll stay in prison.]]

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: In "Dropping Bombs", Hayes decides to review the case of Rodney Landon, an Islamophobe who was busted for bombing a mosque by the Counter-Terrorism Unit, just to piss off Wallace and the politically-powerful CTU. However, [[spoiler:her investigation reveals that the evidence that was used to convict Landon was illegally obtained, meaning that he has to be released. And then, of course, she finds out that Landon truly was innocent of the bombing, though he planned to commit another bombing that would kill even ''more'' Muslims.]]

* TheAtoner: Tess, who is adamant over the unreliability of eyewitness testimony... because her own eyewitness testimony sent an innocent man to prison.

* BiTheWay: Hayes' turns out to have had a girlfriend in the past, who's considered as her replacement at the CIU.

* RippedFromTheHeadlines: The second episode's "Prospect 3" case has similarities to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_jogger_case Central Park 5 case]], which was coincidentally back in the headlines when the episode aired because of comments made by Presidential candidate Creator/DonaldTrump claiming they were really guilty, despite them having been exonerated with DNA evidence. However this has a [[RaceLift race-reversed portrayal]] from the real life case, with a black victim and white suspects. [[spoiler:One of them also actually is guilty, unlike the real suspects.]]

** The pilot episode is clearly inspired by the Adnan Syed/Hae Min Lee case that was was infamous by the podcast Serial. The alleged killer was a high school athlete whose main picture of him in his football uniform greatly resembles one constantly used of Adnan. The victim's diary is used as a piece of evidence, she's found in the woods, there's issues with the timeline and information missing from the files. There's even a drug dealing friend.

* FrameUp: [[spoiler:The wife of a victim in "Dropping Bombs" murdered him for having an affair by using a bomb a militant Islamophobe used, implicating him in the process.]]

* KarmaHoudini: Invoked as a series premise - Hayes, being a former First Daughter whose mother is planning on running in this universe's next presidential race, is not charged for possession of cocaine and is instead given the position of the head of CIU, purely because her family can't afford her causing them trouble.
** Discussed especially in "Mother's Little Burden" - the scandal of having possession charge covered up is discovered and Hayes' brother Jackson has her appear on an national talk show to do damage control by garnering sympathy. Hayes, being Hayes, naturally can't keep up the charade, and points out that the only reason she's gotten away with what she does is because of her name and privilege - and that she's very willing to share that privilege by means of overturning wrongful convictions.

* AssholeVictim: Rodney Landon is an Islamophobic terrorist so extreme he thinks ''all'' Muslims should be wiped out. [[spoiler: He was framed for bombing a mosque, while having planned to kill far more.]]
* TheAtoner: Tess, who is adamant over the unreliability of eyewitness testimony...because her own eyewitness testimony sent an innocent man to prison.

* FrameUp: [[spoiler: The wife of a victim in "Dropping Bombs" murdered him for having an affair by using a bomb a militant Islamophobe used, implicating him in the process.]]

* BlackmailBackfire: After Maxine blackmails Hayes into actually starting to do her job by threatening to tell the others that Maxine uncovered her arrest for drug possession, Hayes ensures that isn't going to happen again...by telling them all herself.