Broadchurch musings

[dbskyler]

So Broadchurch is turning into a courtroom drama, and there are things happening that don't make much sense to me. I'm not sure if this is because of differences between the British legal system and the American legal system, or if it's because they've decided to just make legal stuff up for the sake of the drama.

-- Why would the prosecutor get to just decide she wants to take on the case? Isn't there someone somewhere who assigns prosecutors? Or did they just skip over that part?

-- Same thing for the defense attorney, to a slightly lesser extent -- in the US, either the defendant chooses his attorney, or if it's a public defender, the attorney is assigned. Again, there was no scene where Joe actually said "Yes, I want you for my lawyer."

-- The whole thing tonight with the confession getting excluded happened in front of the jury? In the US, a decision like that would happen before the trial began -- before jury selection, even. (Well, that's my layperson understanding, but I'm pretty certain. Stuff can come up unexpectedly that the jury is then told to disregard, but this was not unexpected.)

Apparently I should go watch a lot more "Law and Order:UK" in order to better acquaint myself with British courtrooms.

Comments

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

The answer to your questions is, yes, they're making it up - which is pretty ironic, considering Chibnall actually worked on S1 of LOUK!

There were a LOT of complaints about the inaccuracy of the legal side of the show - A LOT! So it's not just the difference between US and UK legal systems, it's that Chibnall just did whatever he wanted for the sake of the story.

I would never deter anyone from watching more LOUK 'cos Freema and Ben Daniels are AWESOME in it! (Esp Freema. I love Alesha something fierce!)

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

Aha, okay then. Good to know, thanks!

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Welcome.

I found the second series rather torturous, to tell the truth.

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

It's keeping my interest so far, but I'm not really liking where it's going. Chibnall seems to want to tie things up in as many knots as possible, and in the process he's warping the characters rather than revealing them as he did in series 1.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

It's worth it in the end, but I got very frustrated at times.

David and Olivia (ESPECIALLY Olivia) were brilliant throughout, though.