Allison Leotta's Blog, page 7
July 2, 2013
LAW OF ATTRACTION is a Kindle Monthly Deal!
May 31, 2013
DISCRETION will be a Kindle Daily Deal!
This is a great chance to check out my writing — and let me know “What I got right” and “What I got wrong,” just as we’ve been doing with SVU for all these seasons! 
Enjoy! And thanks for your support!
May 22, 2013
Be Part of My Street Team!
The first 100 people to respond will be my street team. Thank you so much for your support!
SVU’s Season 14 Finale: “Her Negotiation”
May 15, 2013
SVU Episode #14-23: Brief Interlude
What they got wrong:
Amanda was working a week after she got shot?! Most cops would be able to milk that for at least a few months of paid leave.
What was the Medical Examiner doing examining the living, breathing victim? The ME is in charge of examining corpses. A live rape victim is examined by a sexual assault nurse examiner. SANE nurses are specially trained in sensitively handling victims of this most intimate crime. (And they don’t go making cracks about how it would be easier if the victim was dead.)
There is no real-life ME who can say whether a hernia operation was done by a Canadian versus American doctor. I kept waiting for Dr. Warner to say, “This was done by a red-haired, left-handed, sixty-two-year-old midget surgeon located somewhere in the Mongolian desert.” This is the sort of magical science that only exists on TV.
Why was Olivia so mean and cranky with the hotel manager? She bullied and threatened him into letting her into the guest room and his office. Just bring a warrant. It would be a piece of cake to get – and would guard against later arguments that Olivia violated the Fourth Amendment. Sure, Ariel isn’t going to move to suppress any evidence found in that room. But what if the killer had checked into the room with her? He would have a privacy right in that room, and thus standing move to have any evidence suppressed. The best practice in the situation is to stop yelling at the poor manager and just get a warrant.
What do you think, SVU fans? Can Dr. Warner determine the body-mass index of a surgeon based on the scar he leaves? Is she the one who killed Ariel? And what’s really more dangerous: charity or infidelity? Leave your comments!
See you next week for the season finale.
May 14, 2013
BREAKING BAD and the Deeper Game — By Thomas Kaufman
‘Kaufman is a welcome new voice in DC crime fiction.” – George Pelecanos, author of WHAT IT WAS
‘Fast and funny, with a huge heart. Kaufman is clearly a writer worth keeping an eye on.’ Steve Hamilton, author of THE LOCK ARTIST
May 8, 2013
SVU Episode #14-22: Poisoned Motive
What do you think, SVU fans? Has there ever been interrogation techniques on SVU less appropriate than threatening to spork out a suspect’s eyeballs if he doesn’t confess? Shouldn’t Finn have at least sent a card to Luis’s wife’s funeral? And does having ovaries guarantee a charaMay 9, 2013cter’s arrest in the final scene? Leave your comments!
May 1, 2013
SVU Episode #14-21: Traumatic Wound
What they got wrong:
Barba’s a great character, but he was totally off his game tonight.
First, he said that the DNA on Gabby’s body after the attack would “only show proximity,” not an assault. But there were bite marks, and forensic testing would be able to tell if the DNA was from saliva. If you’ve got someone’s saliva in a victim’s bite mark, that’s not just proximity – that’s an assault.
Worse, was Barba’s theory that he could convict the top-sharking kids for rape. Sure, the kids were horrible. But there was no legal basis to hold them responsible for the gang rape committed by strangers. The prepsters conspired to take a girl’s shirt off and photograph her. Barba implied that because they’d formed a shirt-stealing conspiracy, they would be guilty of anything reasonably foreseeable from a situation where a woman is missing her shirt. But that’s not the case if the resulting crimes were committed by someone outside of their original conspiracy. Maybe Barba meant the kids had aiding and abetting liability. But to be guilty of a crime under a theory of aiding and abetting, the defendant generally must know of the direct perpetrator’s criminal purpose, must intend to aid and abet the perpetrator, and must do or say something that in fact aids and abets the crime. Here, the trust-fund kids didn’t even know the scraggly gang rapists; they certainly didn’t know about their criminal purpose. This conviction wouldn’t stand in real life.
It was silly that there was one defense attorney for all three rich kids. That would never happen in real life; the attorney would have a total conflict of interest. The kids’ best bet would be to turn on each other. They’d each need their own attorney to advise them about that option. Even if the three wanted to share one attorney, no judge in her right mind would allow it — this just sets up the perfect situation for the kids to appeal.
And you already know how unlikely it was that Barba would learn about the incriminating video in the last five minutes of trial. It was dramatic! But moments like that only happen on Perry Mason and SVU.
I’ve got more, but I’ve run out of words. So leave your comments and hit the issues I don’t have room for!
April 24, 2013
SVU Episode #14-20: Girl Dishonored
These instances illustrate not just a series of individual bad judgments, but an entire rape culture that pervades our country’s schools. As parents, we must teach our sons to respect girls. As a society, we should demand that colleges treat victims of these most intimate crimes with the dignity and support they deserve — and that perpetrators are held accountable.
What they got wrong:
The Dean of Students wasn’t an accessory to rape. Yes, she could be guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice, for her testimony in the grand jury. But to give her a rape charge for failing to stop a rape culture on her campus, while satisfying on a dramatic level, was not legally supportable.
What do you think, SVU fans? What do colleges need to do to ensure that rape victims are treated with dignity and support? What should parents and teachers do to teach boys to respect women? How can we change the culture of rape on college campuses? Leave your comments.
April 12, 2013
Jodi Arias and the Dilemma of Beautiful Killers: What’s the optimal amount of lipgloss to avoid the electric chair?
The findings also showed that women perceived as more independent and in charge of their lives were also more likely to be seen as guilty of murder.” Hm, ladies, maybe you should put away that compact and meekly gaze at your hands.
So what’s a pretty defendant to do?
I think it depends on how strong the case is. If the prosecution is weak, a bombshell might benefit from playing down her looks and reducing the risk of resentment from female jurors. In Jodi Arias’s case, however, the government’s evidence is strong. She’s lied so many times, people are highly skeptical of her story now. In my opinion, she simply cannot be acquitted at trial. However, she could avoid the electric chair if she got just one juror to take her side. Since verdicts need to be unanimous, a single holdout could hang the whole case – and save her from hanging. For that reason, Arias’s better strategy might have been to come to court in full vixen mode, and hope to make one of the jurors fall in love with her.
Of course, we all wish Justice was blind. But since jurors don’t wear blindfolds, female defendants are wise to consider not only the best lawyer, but just the right shade of lipgloss.
