Why was Hamilton Burger allowed to keep his job?
25 false cases a year, every year must have cost the tax payers a fortune.
shareBurger's office did have about as many slam dunk cases against those who did admit to those murders.
shareI think an equally talented defence lawyer might get them acquitted. "Your honor, my client suffers from post traumatic stress releated to the false confession he was tricked into making. It is illegal under legistlation so and so to bla bla bla so therefore the admissions made in the previous case are immaterial, unless the prosecutor can yada yada yada.." At this point Burger would have a stroke.
shareI was just answering your question why Burger kept his job. He won those other cases.
shareI strenuously object. Accusing a wrong person time after time would give the DA and the jurisdiction such bad rap, especially in the rich LA area, the public outrage would force him to resign. And imagine the law suites for wrongful persecution.
shareYou must be thinking of a different series. If you're familiar with the 9 years the show was aired, that didn't happen.
shareThen I guess they should fire all the Judges and Prosecutors in the "Matlock" TV series.
shareI think this series was meant to be watched as individual episodes with no passage of time and not linearly. The characters stayed pretty much the same throughout the 9-year run.
shareIf Burger's superiors were smart they would hire J.L. McCabe to replace him.
shareI don't think so, considering that he always got a successful prosecution right after Perry ferreted out the guilty person. Another reason is, that JL McCabe only lasted five years. So Burger actually had a job longer than him.
Funny thing about "Jake and the Fatman", it had a spin-off that ran about ten years, "Diagnosis Murder".
Conrad was getting up there in age, which probably played as a factor. Too bad Jake and The Fatman has only seasons 1 and 2 available on DVD. I remember the show really hitting its groove during the later seasons. Funny I never watched Diagnosis Murder.
shareI agree. Everyone of those cases were preliminary hearings, except for the one he lost (but then she was exonerated). Perry gave him those cases on a silver platter.
shareNot all were preliminary hearings. They had several that had a jury, in addition to the one he lost.
shareThey went to the preliminary hearing after the budget person figured out that it was more cost effective not to have to pay 12 more extras. Plus the camera angles are better when you don't have to include the jury. You can then work in those intensive close-ups.
shareI thought it was because they wanted to stay as close to actual court room procedures as possible. I believe it was "Matlock" that had all the jury trials and the judges let him get away with a lot. When the prosecutor objected to Matlock's line of questioning, Matlock would tell the judge he would tie it all in and the judge would let him proceed. That happened almost every week.
share