American Justice is a law and criminal justice television series that aired on A&E.
Hosted originally by news anchor and television journalist Bill Kurtis, it showcases the ins and outs of the United States justice system and the various crimes committed by all walks of life, including robberies, assaults, extortion, kidnappings, and murders and includes interviews with those connected to the individual cases, such as police officials, prosecutors, reporters, and victims and/or their loved ones.
The original run aired from 1992 to 2005, and the revival series, hosted by Dennis Haysbert, began airing in 2021.
Not to be confused with either the 1986 film or the unrelated 2015 film.
Related Tropes:
- Age-Gap Romance: Some episodes have a marriage or relationship between two people with a significant age difference, including one with a twenty-five-year age gap.
- Ambition is Evil:
- Played with in "A Woman Scorned" with Dan Broderick. While ex-wife Betty's defense attorney believes that once he became a millionaire, he had cheated on then dumped Betty with Linda, according to other sources, not only was he always a very driven person (with the episode stating that when he first introduced himself to Betty, he wrote on the napkin he sent her his signature as "MDA", meaning "medical doctor, almost"), she also had ambitions to be little more than a wealthy housewife.
- In the Pamela Smart case, many commented on her greedy and ambitious nature that allowed her to cheat on Gregg with Billy, manipulate him and his friends to kill him, and try to play the innocent widow, all in an effort to get rid of her husband without the risk of losing everything in a divorce.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: As discussed in "The Witness and The Hitman". To wit, Bob Lowe was an innocent bystander who had seen a hitman commit a couple of murders and in the aftermath, not only was he sent into witness protection, the killer was acquitted of the murders and the judge who proceeded over the trial had scolded and embarrassed him, who testified against the killer, by calling him a liar. When it came out that the judge was dirty and was in cahoots with the killer and was facing some serious legal trouble, including being disbarred and imprisoned, he took his own life. Upon being told this, Lowe admitted to dancing a jig of glee and was glad that he was dead.
- Answer Cut: In "The Wife Who Knew Too Much", one of the two jurors who gave the killer life instead of death said she did it while thinking of his two sons, feeling it would be too much to lose their father to death after losing their mother (who was killed by a hitman hired by the father) to murder. The next person immediately interviewed was one of the victim's sisters, who angrily replied, "She thinks he's a father? He's an animal".
- Asshole Victim: A few episodes featured a victim who was not particularly liked or even arguably was deserving of death, including "Justifiable Homicide?" and "Stacey's Story", which had a teenager killing an abusive relationship (the grandfather and father, respectively) and still receiving prison for it.
- Black Widow: "Serial Wife", "Deadly Magnolia", and "The Black Widow of Vegas", to name a few, all involve women who had a spouse or several spouses they either had killed or were accused of killing.
- Book Ends: Episodes "Why O.J. Won" and "Why O.J. Lost" display the two different outcomes of his criminal and civil cases.
- Bowdlerise: Some episodes when aired in syndication on the Biography channel had some swear words used in the A&E airing be either blanked or bleeped out, particularly the word "bitch".
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: "Daughter Dearest" had Valessa Robinson, a wild child who rebelled against her loving mother Vicki's parenting and who disapproved her her lifestyle. She convinced her older boyfriend and his friend to ultimately kill her mother, all while she tried to play the role of the "innocent" child caught in the middle.
- Caged Bird Metaphor: Discussed in "Mail-Order Murder" by a friend of Anastasia's, who expressed that although she was living in America which was her dream, life with her husband was a nightmare, citing how she often worked herself ragged as a restaurant hostess while he was either frequently unemployed or working minimum wage jobs.note She then briefly mentioned the Gilded Cage scenario but compared her situation to more of a rusty cage.
- Car Fu:
- "Driven to Kill" had Boston resident Marianne McLaughlin struck by a hit-and-run driver that her husband was behind. In spite of being gravely injured and left in a coma for a while, she ultimately survived.
- "Murder by Mercedes" involved Houston dentist David Harris being repeatedly run down by his estranged wife, fellow dentist Clara, after she caught him cheating, although unlike the previous example, he (obviously) did not survive.
- Content Warnings: Some of the episodes, such as the Jeffrey Dahmer episode and "The Brit & The Bodybuilder", have a "viewer discretion" warning before it aired.
- Cool Old Guy:
- Host Bill Kurtis, with his professionalism and cool, crisp voice, is well-loved by many fans.
- Dick Britton, the friend of the victim and her husband who owned the farm in "The Perfect Murder: The Shannon Mohr Story" where the murder took place, was a nice guy and loyal friend to Shannon who not only helped investigators solve her murder but convinced David to bury her in her home state near her family.
- Courtroom Antics:
- Downplayed in "For Love And Money": at Celeste Beard's murder trial, the normally seductively dressed Celeste was dressed conservatively with her hair pulled back, glasses, and on crutches with a leg injury that was never explained. One of her defense attorneys also at one point put on a big pillow over his stomach to imitate her late husband Steven, which actually prompted laughter from her.
- Played straight in "The Black Widow of Vegas" with Margaret Rudin's spirited and flamboyant defense attorney, Michael Amador (who nicknamed himself "Slam-a-door" due to his apparent history of winning slam-dunk cases). His opening statement was a long-winded diatribe that was more about himself and his life than the case at hand and his defense team were no better, even bringing in a life-sized replica of the Rudin marital bed and displaying plenty of silliness considered inappropriate for the courtroom. This soon gained the ire of the sitting judge, who yelled at Amador and even compared the antics to The Jerry Springer Show, a show that he hates.
- Dated History: A few episodes that had a certain scenario at the time ended up changing considerably over the years:
- "Vanished" had ended with the bodies of victims Cynthia Vanderheiden and Chevelle "Chevy" Wheeler still missing in spite of their killers being sent to prison. Come 2012, when the one killer began working with investigators and the other killer, since released on parole, died of suicide in response, their remains were finally located.
- "A Mother's Story of Murder" had Debra Milke, convicted of her son's murder, sitting on Arizona's death row. In 2013, her conviction was overturned and she was officially released from prison the following year.
- "Who Killed Hannah Hill?" ended with no one being charged with her murder due to shaky evidence, prosecutorial and juror misconduct and prime suspect Denny Ross reportedly being physically unable to commit the crime. Years after the 1999 murder, Ross was proven to be the killer and both convicted and sentenced.
- In the years since the murders, both Dr. Clara Harris of "Murder By Mercedes" and Margaret Rudin of "The Black Widow of Vegas" have been released from prison.
- Tom Capano, the defense attorney who killed his mistress from "Body of Evidence", had his death sentence commuted to life in prison in 2006. He died five years later while still serving his time.
- Bob Fratta, who was sentenced to death after hiring two hitmen to kill his estranged wife Farah in "The Brit & The Bodybuilder" and who was interviewed by the program while on death row, was executed for the murder in January 2023.
- A Deadly Affair: Numerous episodes involved a love triangle (or love quadrangle) that ended with one of the people involved dead. An interesting subversion occurred in "The Doctor's Wife", which ended with all of the people involved in the affair dying; the first wife eventually died from injuries she suffered from accidentally shooting herself weeks earlier, the husband was murdered by the second wife through poisoning to get his money six years later, and said wife, already convicted of his murder and sentenced, died of pneumonia whilst in prison three years later after a long stretch of poor health.
- Deadpan Snarker: Tom Capano's defense attorney from "Body of Evidence" told the press that he took the body of his mistress to bury her at sea. When one reporter asked why, he replied, "Because you couldn't keep it at home!" while giving the reporter who asked a "Duh!" look on his face.
- Dirty Cop: Kent McGowen of "A Warrant to Kill", even before his involvement in Susan White's murder, was seen as a lousy cop who was lazy, combative, corrupt, and rarely got along with his fellow officers, especially anyone who outranked him. One report by a police psychologist even stated that he would work best in an isolated area with very little interaction with the public.
- Dirty Coward: Discussed in "The Susan Smith Story". Michael and Alex's paternal grandfather stated that the county refused to sentence her to death because they would have to face her stepfather, a powerful local politician (who, as it came out during her trial, in spite of his political standing and being the head of the Christian coalition, had been molesting her since she was a teenager). He ended up calling them a "county of cowards".
- Disproportionate Retribution:
- "Hunting Bambi: The Laurie Bembenek Story" stemmed from Laurie suing the Milwaukee Police Department for unfair dismissal (as she was fired for allegedly failing to report a friend and fellow former female officer's drug-related arrest but she was later shown pictures of several male officers dancing naked at a public park who suffered no punishment over it). Many people believe that the department framed her for the murder of her husband's first wife as a result.
- "Eliminating the Competition" had Byron Looper kill the incumbent Senator of the 15th district Tommy Burks in order to win his seat. Burks' widow, Charlotte, ran for the seat herself via a write-in (as Looper was the only name still left on the ballot) and won by a landslide.
- Driven to Suicide: A few suspects, when about to be charged or otherwise accused of the crimes, attempt this, successfully or not:
- Fred Tokars in "The Wife Who Knew Too Much", who hired a hitman to kill his estranged wife Sara, attempted this via painkillers and alcohol shortly before Christmas 1992 and was only found when a family member of his was unable to reach him.
- Charles Rathbun from "A Model Murder" implied that he was going to shoot himself after being named a suspect in the disappearance and murder of model Linda Sobek. Aftet a brief standoff with police, he was disarmed and arrested.
- Successfully done by Leonard Lake, one of the two serial killers from "The California Killing Field". When questioned by police, he admitted that he and Charles Ng were partners and involved with some of the victims, but before he could admit to anything else, he swallowed a cyanide pill taped to his shirt collar and passed out, remaining unconscious until his death several days later.
- Drugs Are Bad: This was the underlying lesson in "Drugs, Dancing & Murder". Club promoter Michael Alig, a long-term drug user, murdered and dismembered Angel Melendez while high on drugs. Convicted only of manslaughter, he was eventually released from prison in 2014 and, true to the trope's name, died of a drug overdose on Christmas Eve 2020.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Earlier episodes of the series would primarily focus on various aspects of the American judicial system, including kidnappings, espionage, unusual defenses in court, and some of the more sensational, non-murder cases in pop culture, such as the 1950s Quiz Show scandal and the divorce of Donald and Ivana Trump.
- Ephebophile: "Crime of Passion: The Pamela Smart Story" had schoolteacher Pamela Smart seduce Billy Flynn, a fifteen-year-old student, and convince him and two friends of his to kill her husband, Gregg.
- Flipping the Bird: Both Richard Allen Davis and Aileen Wuornos did this after their convictions for murder. Coincidentally, they were both sentenced to death; whereas Wuornos was executed in 2002, Davis remains on death row.
- Formula-Breaking Episode:
- "Godfathers vs. The Law" and "Vegas & The Mob" both ran for two hours long instead of the traditional hour-long program.
- "Countdown to Execution" had the real-time countdown of a condemned man, only for him to be spared at the 11th hour.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: In "The Monster Inside", while the program is discussing the troubled childhood of the rapist and murderer of two college-aged women, victim Aundria Crawford's mother Gail states that a lot of people have bad childhoods and that said childhoods don't turn the average person into a killer.
- From Camouflage to Criminal: Serial killers Leonard Lake and Charles Ng from "The California Killing Field" had met while serving in the United States Marine Corps. during the Vietnam War.
- Funeral Banishment: One episode had the best friend of a young woman who was murdered by her possessive, mentally ill, and abusive father be barred from attending her funeral. While the girl's sympathetic other family members attempted to sneak her in to pay her respects prior to the event, her father still caught wind of the friend's presence and kicked her out.
- Gaslighting: In "The Betty Broderick Story", when she had suspected that her husband was carrying on an affair with his new secretary, she replied "get rid of the little bitch or get out", to which he both continuously lied to her and said that she was imagining things. However, when they divorced two years later, he said that she was right all along.
- Gold Digger:
- Stephanie Stephens from "The Doctor's Wife" initially worked as a nurse in a hospital but stated that her true intentions were to "find me a doctor" in spite of already being married. She soon went after Dr. David Stephens and eventually married (and killed) him.
- Celeste Beard from "For Love Or Money" married her husband, media tycoon Steven Beard, only for his money, although she had also engaged in affairs with both men and women. She eventually had one of her female suitors kill him (although he didn't pass until a few months later, through a sepsis infection that Celeste herself caused).
- Gorn: Several episodes show the victim's (often blurred out) remains and/or the crime scene aftermath itself.
- Greed: A perpetual motive for many of the crimes. In "Millions of Reasons to Kill", wealthy college student Dana Ewell hired classmates to kill his father Dale, mother Glee, and older sister Tiffany to get his hands on the vast family inheritances. He and his cohorts are eventually sentenced to life in prison.
- Harmful to Minors: Sadly, many of the crimes, including murder, have happened in the presence of the victim's children or other minors, or they had been the victims themselves. In "Brutal Revenge", Sheila Bellush was viciously murdered in front of her quadruplet babies and the infants were found with her blood still splashed onto them.
- Heel–Faith Turn: Karla Faye Tucker of "Dead Woman Walking" became a born-again Christian after she was sentenced to death for a double ax murder in 1983. This caused quite a stir among religious groups who advocated for Texas, where she was on death row, not to kill her. They ultimately lost and she was executed in 1998.
- Homophobic Hate Crime: "The Brandon Teena Story", "A Soldier's Secret", and "The Matthew Sheppard Story" had the victims be killed due to their sexual orientations.
- If I Can't Have You…: Plenty of episodes feature someone resorting to this. Possibly the saddest example came from "Death of a Bride" where Gladys Ricart was murdered on her wedding day by a jealous ex-boyfriend.
- I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: A particularly disturbing self-inflicted scenario occurred in "The Doctor's Wife". Karen Stephens, the first wife of heart surgeon David Stephens, in an attempt to stop him from leaving her, ran after him while holding a loaded gun in her mouth. She tripped, the gun went off (all while in front of him) and she accidentally shot herself and rendered herself a quadriplegic who died of her injuries two months later.
- Imperiled in Pregnancy: Sadly, some of the murder victims were pregnant at the time of their deaths, including Melissa Nortrup, who was pregnant with her third child, from "Free to Kill Again" and LeAnn Fletcher from "Love Triangle", who was pregnant with her second child. Among the most well-known scenarios were of Laci Peterson of "The Scott Peterson Trial" who was expecting her first child, and Marilyn Sheppard of "The Sam Sheppard Case" who was pregnant with her second child.
- Instant Emergency Response: Sadly averted in "Murder in Paradise". After victim Dana Ireland, having been raped and brutally beaten, was found by a passerby, due to being left in an isolated part of a Hawaiian forest, it took paramedics over an hour before they located her and she did not survive as a result. Her murder inspired lawmakers to install payphones in isolated sections of Hawaii to prevent this from happening again.
- Insufferable Genius: George Trepal of "Kill Thy Neighbor" is a combination of this and a Manipulative Bastard who poisoned his neighbors' Coca-Cola bottles with thallium because they reportedly "annoyed" him, which ended up killing the wife of the Carr family, Peggy.
- It's All About Me: After Susan White's murder in "A Warrant to Kill", Kent McGowen's then-girlfriend recalled how upset he seemed about it all. Whereas it seemed at first he had some remorse over what occurred, he was only angry about how much White and the case were screwing up his life. Then when she asked him if he meant the kill her, he reportedly replied "Hell, yeah" because of how much their conflicts were jeopardizing his career.
- Karma Houdini:
- "Getting Away With Murder" had Mel Ignatow, who tortured and murdered his fiancée Brenda Schaefer, be acquitted of the murder due to juror apathy. Only afterwards did pictures of the hours he spent abusing the woman surface, but thanks to double jeopardy laws, he couldn't be retried. (Though they were able to convict him of perjury, as he falsely testified that he hadn't killed her). He eventually died after falling over a glass table -- like the one he'd tied his victim to -- while home alone 20 years later, having spent that time as a much-hated recluse.
- "Blood Relations" had the former husband of a woman brutally kill her and her sister in a conspiracy case. He was also acquitted of the crime.
- "Oil, Money & Murder" had oil tycoon T. Cullen Davis eventually be acquitted after two trials after being accused of murdering both his estranged wife's lover and her 12-year-old child. He and his attorney were able to use both his money and his wife's apparent seedy reputation to get away with it.
- One of the most infamous cases featured Claus Von Bulow, who got away with poisoning his wife Sunny twice, with the second attempt putting her into a persistent vegetative state which she never emerged from and she died over thirty-five years later. Like Davis, he used his money to escape justice.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: "Blood Brothers: The Derek and Alex King Case" had Ricky Chavis, a convicted child molester, manipulate the two young brothers into murdering their father Terry. Whereas the boys were initially convicted of second-degree murder and he was acquitted, karma soon balanced itself as Chavis was soon convicted of false imprisonment and conspiracy to commit murder and sentenced to thirty years, and the boys themselves were each paroled after six and seven years behind bars.
- Lady Swears-a-Lot:
- Betty Broderick had her leaving plenty of obscene messages on her ex-husband Dan's answering machine, to his anger and the children's chagrin. One intense phone call between Betty and their older son Danny displayed how distressing he found the calls.
- Pamela Smart, according to the recordings of the Hidden Wire worn by one of her students, Cecelia Pierce, had her drop the "F-bomb" virtually every other word in a conversation they had where the former tells the latter not to talk to cops.
- Leave No Survivors: Plenty of cases involve the killers murdering everyone because of spite or evil:
- "The California Killing Field" had the two killers murder their many victims (which included entire families with children and even concerned loved ones searching for the victims) simply because of the Lack of Empathy they both had.
- "The Cult Murders" had religious "prophet" Jeffrey Lundgren kill the entire Avery family, which included three young daughters of the couple, the youngest who was only 6, because of their "betrayal" of him and his beliefs.
- While some believe that Perry Smith and Richard Hickock from "Murder 'In Cold Blood'" decided to kill the Clutter family out of revenge that there was no safe (and the episode even implied this), further studies of the crime showcased that they would have killed the family regardless of whatever monies were gained from the robbery.
- Leave No Witnesses: Subverted in "The Brandon Teena Story". Brandon and his two friends who were staying at his house end up brutally murdered in the hopes of achieving this. Turns out, not only did one of the killers soon roll over on the other to reduce his role in the killings but they left one of the victims' infant alive in another room (presumably since they were unaware of the child's presence).
- Long-Runners: The original run of the series aired from 1992 until 2005.
- Love at First Sight: More like lust: in "A Deadly Dose", when Brian Eftenoff had first viewed Judi Harding at a club, he allegedly told a friend, "I own that; I'm gonna have that."
- Love Makes You Crazy: If not evil; plenty of cases involve someone doing something unspeakable in the name of "love". The ending footnote of the "Hillside Stranglers" case had one of the killers, Kenneth Bianchi's, girlfriend Veronica Compton attempt to kill another woman in the hopes of helping to prove to investigators that he was innocent. Thankfully, the woman quickly escaped and she was sentenced to prison herself, but was released in 2003.
- Made of Iron:
- The wife in "Driven to Kill", who had been critically injured in an unsolved hit and run, in spite of being left in a coma, having to undergo reconstructive surgery, and losing her peripheral vision, survived and is relatively healthy.
- The primary victim in "Murder on the Boardwalk" Lisa Fotopolous, the wealthy wife of the killer, not only survived being shot in the head, but also had very little residual damage.
- Marriage of Convenience: Outright stated in "Murder and Mrs. B". Diane Borchardt claimed to have married her husband (and victim) Ruben to give his two small children a mother after their own mother's death in a car accident. According to the children, however, Diane proved to be a lousy wife and mother and was described as controlling, manipulative, and distant, especially after she and Ruben welcomed a daughter of their own.
- Mood Dissonance: Discussed in both the Selena and Laci Peterson cases. After both of the guilty verdicts were delivered, observers in the courtroom were confused to hear loud cheers from the outside public, considering the cases too sad to "celebrate" and the fact that a guilty verdict, in and of itself, is not a happy thing. The prosecutor in the former case even compared the reaction inside the courtroom to the verdict to the crying you would hear at a funeral.
- Ms. Fanservice:
- Linda Sobek, the victim from "A Model Murder", was a beautiful model and a former cheerleader from The Los Angeles Raiders Cheerleaders squad. Not only did the videos shown in news reports about her then-missing persons case garner plenty of attention from viewers, but a man who found her pictures discarded in a trash can decided to take them home because of how pretty she was. Once he realized that she was missing, however, he did the right thing and gave the photos to investigators.
- Anastacia King, the victim from "Mail-Order Murder", was a beautiful Russian mail-order bride to her average-looking husband, Indle. She worked as a hostess while he was regularly unemployed and her beauty and her warm and upbeat personality made her very popular with the restaurant's patrons.
- Never Found the Body: Sadly, some cases, even with there being a conviction, still has the victim's remains still missing and in all likelihood irretrievable:
- "Body of Evidence: The Tom Capano Trial" had wealthy and well-connected lawyer Tom Capano kill his mistress Anne Marie Fahey after she tried to leave him and dump her body in the Atlantic Ocean.
- "What Happened to Carrie Culberson?" had Vincent Doan, who abused his girlfriend Carrie Culberson, kill her to stop her from filing charges against him. While it's speculated that she is buried in the Ohio countryside, one rumor is also that she was Fed to Pigs.
- "Traces in Blood" has Girly Chew Hossencofft murdered by her estranged husband Diazien and his lover Linda Henning when the former tried to divorce him. Unlike the previous cases, what happened to her remains is a mystery; neither killer gave any true indication of where she could be, although one rumor is that they consumed her.
- "Friends Til The End" has college student Sarah Stern killed by "friends" of hers due to learning of a large inheritance she received from her grandmother. They then threw her into the Shark River and then planted her vehicle on the Route 35 Bridge to make it look like she had died of suicide.
- Never My Fault:
- Brian Eftenoff from "A Deadly Dose" was a habitual drug user who got his wife Judi addicted and was also a Domestic Abuser. After his conviction for both her murder and mailing drugs to her parents, his only acceptance of guilt was that he "gave his family too long of a leash".
- Aside from the confession and the overwhelming amount of evidence, Betty Broderick was partially convicted based on her lack of remorse and her refusal to take responsibility for her actions, citing solely that Dan and Linda's poor treatment and harassment of her drove her to commit the murders. While they did harass her repeatedly, she would downplay or deny her own actions, including the damning and vulgar messages left on the couple's answering machine (which her own children had to listen to as well) and a past incident where she threw a ketchup bottle at Dan. Many believe this is also why she has been repeatedly denied parole in the years since the crimes.
- Charles Ng, one of the serial killers in "The California Killing Field", claimed that he was helpless to walk away from the various rapes, tortures, and murders that he and Leonard Lake committed due to apparent Stockholm syndrome. To this, one of the jurors interviewed for the episode tearfully countered that he did have a choice in the matter, but that the innocent babies he killed couldn't walk away from the situation themselves.
- Nice Girl: Penny Scaggs, the victim from "The Perfect Wife", was a faithful woman to her husband, was the organist at her church, and was well-loved by virtually everyone who knew her. Sadly, her husband Roger didn't feel the same, having cheated on her with a younger woman and then murdered her to continue his affair.
- Not Enough to Bury: Unfortunately, sometimes a victim or their remains are too minimal or damaged to be identified or buried.
- Not So Stoic: Plenty of cases touched a nerve with seasoned investigators and others connected with law and order, especially when it involves children. In "The Susan Smith Story", prosecutor Tommy Pope replied that after the bodies of Michael and Alex Smith were recovered, there were plenty of grown men crying. Similarly in "Jonesboro Schoolyard Massacre", a responding officer to the scene was interviewed by reporters and broke down on camera when talking about a small, injured boy being taken away on a stretcher.
- Off on a Technicality: A variant of sorts: Serial Killer Kenneth McDuff from "Free To Kill Again", having been convicted and sentenced to death for a triple murder in 1966, was not only taken off death row after the United States declared it to be unconstitutional in 1972 but he was then released from prison several years later due to overcrowding. He would go on to commit at least five more murders, be sent back to death row and finally executed in 1999.
- Oh, Crap!: Said nearly verbatim in "The California Killing Field." When investigators were searching Leonard Lake's property and located the camcorder of the missing Dubs family, she said, "Oh, shit". Unfortunately, this made Lake's wife (and in all likelihood accomplice) angry and she ordered them out, culminating in them losing said evidence.
- Old Shame:
- Prosecutor Stephen Kay from "A Model Murder" expresses regret on camera that he didn't seek the death penalty against Charles Rathbun, who murdered Linda Sobek, on his belief that he was remorseful for his actions. As it turns out, he was only sorry for himself.
- In "The Wife Who Knew Too Much", one of the jurors in the Fred Tokars murder case expressed regret about his role in him getting life instead of death for his role in wife Sara's murder after witnessing the emotional response from her family, even apologizing to them.
- Outlaw Couple:
- Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate from "Spree Killers" committed several robberies and murders in a span of several days in 1958 before they were caught. While he was executed in the electric chair the following year, she was sent to prison for many years and ultimately paroled in the '70s.
- Brandon "B.J." and Erika Sifrit from "Thrill Killers" had committed burglaries and murder while on vacation in 2002. Both were given lengthy prison sentences for their crimes (although the former was only convicted of one of the two murders he committed).
- Parents Know Their Children: In "The Sinatra Kidnapping", when Frank Sinatra was asked by investigators if Frank Jr. had possibly staged his own kidnapping, he said that this was out of the question. He stated that no matter what was going on in his relationship with his only son, he knew that Frank would never put his beloved mother, his former wife Nancy, through the pain of such an act.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: Happened in "The Doctor's Wife" where the first wife of a prominent heart surgeon, upon believing that he was leaving her for good after an argument they had over the affair he was having, ran after him while holding a gun in her mouth to stop him and tripped in the process, having the gun go off and accidentally shooting herself in the head. After spending two months as a respirator-dependent quadriplegic, she passed away.
- Poison Is Evil: "The Excedrin Killings", "Kill Thy Neighbor", "Deadly Magnolia", and "The Doctor's Wife" (amongst others) involved the victim(s) being poisoned to death.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Kenneth McDuff, the Serial Killer from "Free to Murder Again", was also a racist and an implied misogynist who even threatened a group of Black children who walked on his lawn.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivered plenty of times, usually inside of a courtroom:
- In the Jeffrey Dahmer episode, several of the victims' loved ones gave their impact speeches to him, from one woman describing the pain of losing her son to another woman's explosive, expletive-laden speech that had her removed from the courtroom. In later interviews, she admitted that she did it in response to both her anger at his murder and due to Dahmer's claims that he was "crazy" and "not in control of himself" at the time of the killings.
- Bill Smart, father of Gregg Smart, gives one to his ex-daughter-in-law Pamela, which angers her so much that she tries to ask the judge to censor his speech, which neither he nor her defense attorney agreed with.
- After Linda Jones was convicted of her husband's murder in "The Wrath of Mrs. Jones", their younger daughter Shane delivers one to the investigators, stating how her conviction took the only family that she and her sister Jill had left away from them.
- While on the stand during both his murder trial and during the sentencing phase, Tom Capano angered the judge so much with his flippant attitude, that he yelled at him and eventually ordered him out of the courtroom.
- Remarried to the Mistress: Dan Broderick from "The Betty Broderick Story" eventually remarried his longtime mistress Linda Kolkena, several years later and on what would have been the 20th anniversary of his marriage to first wife Betty. The marriage didn't last long.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: A few cases, including murder cases, ended with either charges lessened, dropped altogether, or an acquittal due to the defendant(s) having money. Most noticeably, the Von Bulow and T. Cullen Davis murder trials ended due to them buying their way to freedom.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: "Cops on Trial", an episode about corrupt cops, had one said cop, whilst speaking to a federal judge, answered after being asked who is watching over them for their behavior, "Report to who? We're the police."
- Serial Killer: Quite a few episodes featured a serial killer or killers, including male ("Dahmer: Mystery of a Serial Killer", "The California Killing Field", "Vanished", etc.), female ("Death Row Prostitute: Aileen Wuornos") and possibly wrongly accused or fictitious/embellished ("The Atlanta Child Murders" and "Myth of a Serial Killer", respectively).
- Snuff Film: Thankfully, rarely seen, but both "The California Killing Field" and "Murder on the Boardwalk" each had the victims killed onscreen. More disturbingly is the latter episode which had the killers, a man and his younger mistress, invent a so-called "killer's club" where members had to kill someone to enter and featured a video of them killing an innocent man while he was tied to a tree. It ended with the tape being broadcast on television, but paused just before the killing with Bill Kurtis stating, "What happens next is too graphic to show on television."
- Slut-Shaming:
- The victim from "The Preppie Murder", Jennifer Levin, was subjected to this, with several sources from many publications to even her killer Robert Chambers' defense attorney stating or implying she was this because of the tale that Chambers claimed happened between them. Her death was a catalyst behind New York State passing more strict rape shield laws.
- Priscilla Davis, the former wife of oil tycoon T. Cullen Davis, was subjected to this in "Oil, Money & Murder" by his colorful and effective defense attorney Racehorse Haynes as the murder trials showcased her multiple affairs and her friend's own apparently shady pasts.
- Attempted but ultimately averted in "Death of a Bride". The victim Gladys Ricart's former boyfriend tried to claim that he acted out of both a crime of passion and her "manipulation" of him. Needless to say, neither jurors nor the prosecutors were convinced (especially after viewing the video of her murder and her trying to use her hands to block his bullets), he was convicted and her family held a press conference afterwards to condemn his insinuations.
- Sore Loser: After his conviction in the murder of Adrianne Jones in "Duty, Honor...& Murder", David Graham's defense attorney snarkily responded to press reporters who asked how he was feeling, "He's not a very happy camper and neither am I. Any more brilliant questions?"
- Teens Are Monsters: All of the teenagers involved in "Payback for a Bully" (including the victim himself, according to his killers), were involved in various criminal or otherwise unseemly actions aside from the aforementioned bullying, including robbery, drug addiction, and other petty crime.
- Twisted Christmas: Dana Ireland of "Murder in Paradise", was visiting her sister for Christmas in 1991 when she was attacked and brutally beaten to death. Even when word of the crime got to the investigators, they expressed disbelief that anyone could be murdered on that day, especially in Hawaii.
- Ungrateful Bastard: In "The Brit & The Bodybuilder", prosecutor Kelly Siegler had initially offered twenty years in prison to one of the men who killed Farah Fratta at her former husband Bob's request if he would work with them and implicate Bob. To this, he replied, "Bitch, I wouldn't take two years from you." He was ultimately given the death penalty for his role.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Floyd Wells, a former inmate who became acquainted with Perry Smith and Richard Hickock from "Murder 'In Cold Blood'", told Hickock of an alleged safe that farmer Herb Clutter, whom Wells had previously worked for, had kept in his home. Upon Smith and Hickock breaking in and learning that it was a hoax, killed Mr. Clutter, his wife, and their two teenage children. In the end, Wells was not charged with any crime, and since he provided a tip that led investigators to the perpetrators, he was given the reward money.
- Would Hurt a Child: Several episodes have children as the victims, occasionally at the hands of another child or even their own parents.
- You Are Fat: It was many in the "Jonesboro Schoolyard Massacre" that one of the killers, Mitchell Johnson, was repeatedly teased for his weight.
