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Post by Dizzy D on Sept 8, 2021 6:42:43 GMT -5
In this case it was a report of a missing child that was met with "we can't do anything for 72 hours." Absolute lunacy that should not begin to ever be in any media at this point in time.
You couldn't be righter, counsellor. (I didn't see specificity of that statement when I read it---my oversight.) No police department anywhere would fail to take immediate action to locate a missing child. And the scriptwriter who came up with that nonsense would have been advised of his absurdity by a simple Google search that would've taken all of five minutes or less to inform him of how law enforcement really responds to missing children.
Are you familiar with Bob Ingersoll and his column "The Law Is a Ass"? Ingersoll was a Cleveland lawyer who spent many years in the Cuyahoga County Public Defenders office until his retirement in 2009. In his "The Law Is a Ass" column, he routinely skewered the misapplications and misunderstandings of the law that appeared in primarily comics books, but also in television series and in films. The column has more than three hundred entries, showing that there is no dearth of writers who can't be bothered to actually, you know, check with someone with an actual law degree before coming up with their nonsense. (Ingersoll has a standing offer to check the legal propriety of any comic-book writer's scripts.)
Ingersoll's column is accessible on line, and I look in on it from time to time. I understand how he feels; I feel the same irritation when a television or comic-book script gets basic facts about the military wrong.
I really hate the Law & Order shows.
I enjoy the parent show, but there is one point that rankles, and it occurs in almost every episode. That's when the detectives want to question someone, either a witness or a suspect against whom they have not developed any kind of probable cause (i.e., a "person of interest") and they compel that subject to go down to the precinct house. Usually something like, "We need to talk to you downtown," and the detectives escort him to the next scene where they grill him in an interrogation room.
For everyone else reading this, NOOOOOOOOOO, the police cannot make you accompany them against your will unless they arrest you. And they can't arrest you without probable cause. If they just want to talk to you as part of their investigation, they can ask you to come down to the stationhouse, but they can't compel you to do so. Every once in a rare while on the show, the detectives will attempt to bring someone to the precinct to question him and that subject will ask, "Am I under arrest?" No, he isn't, and there's nothing the detectives can do. Believe me, I'm not an advocate for the defence; I'm a lock'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key kind of guy. But I also believe in the Constitution.
Similar to Bob Ingersoll's column, Polite Dissent was a blog by Dr. Scott Morrison that went into errors in comics and TV shows when it came to medicine and biology. Sadly the site itself is down, but it's still accessible through the archive:
His favourite topics were psychic nosebleeds (why does a telepath get a nosebleed when they are using their powers?) and the old "using only 10% of their brain"
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Post by mikelmidnight on Sept 8, 2021 11:35:02 GMT -5
Oh, and along similar lines, is "Obese guy is actually in peak physical condition/all muscle" an overused trope or is it just something which feels like it given the number of times it's been brought up when The Kingpin makes an appearance? It's been used for The Penguin on at least two occasions I can recall (one of which utilized the cliched montage of 'Penguin lifting weights, Penguin doing karate, shirtless Penguin showing off pecs and bulging bi-ceps') but I can't honestly cite more characters who have had this idea applied to them off the top of my head.
It doesn't bother me because I don't think it's really used all that often. The Kingpin is the prime example. Penguin is fairly recent, used to justify his long-standing ability to challenge Batman even briefly using his brolly as a sword. There's also Tobias Whale but he's just an overt Kingpin clone anyway.
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Post by String on Sept 8, 2021 14:14:11 GMT -5
At the risk of starting a rant, I'll ask, what is the standard practice in regards to the trope of 'reading' you your Miranda rights when you're arrested? I'll admit, Law & Order is one of my favorite shows to have on as background noise during the day and I hate to think Det. Lenny Briscoe has been misleading me after all these years (love Jerry Orbach ). Perhaps you had better brace yourself for a shock, but despite what television and cinema would have you believe, the police do not have to read one his Miranda rights when he is arrested. In order for the Miranda requirements to attach to an individual, two conditions must be in place. One, that he is in the custody of law enforcement; and---not "or", but and---law enforcement officers question that individual about the crime of which he is suspected. If a police officer arrests you, but does not intend to question you about it, then he does not have to read you your rights. Most misdemeanours fall into this situation, particularly ones that are committed in front of the officer. He doesn't have to question you about the crime because he has accumulated sufficient probable cause to arrest you without having to ask you a single thing. (And just to clarify: questions for purposes of identification, such as when the officer asks someone his name, address, date-of-birth, and so forth for the arrest sheet do not count as questions about the crime; ergo, Miranda is not required.) Most suspects of minor offences have been arrested, tried, and convicted without once having had their Miranda rights read to them, because there was no need to question them. By the same token, if a police officer suspects you of a crime but does not, by word or act, place you in custody, he can ask you all the questions he wants about the crime he suspects you committed without the requirement of Miranda warnings. Even if, during the interrogation, the officer decides he's going to arrest you, until he conveys by word or deed that you are in custody, he can ask you all the questions he wants to about your involvement in the crime and Miranda does not attach. Both conditions, custody and interrogation, must be present for Miranda warnings to be required. Now, suppose the police screw up and they take you into custody and interrogate you about the crime, but forget to read you Miranda, what happens? Well, no, the case isn't automatically tossed out and you're off the hook. Again, television and film likes to present it that way. But what failure to give a suspect his Miranda warnings when they are required does is render whatever he says in response to the interrogation as inadmissible. The police might very well have sufficient evidence without the suspect's statements to obtain a conviction. Whether a suspect who was not properly given his Miranda warnings gets his case tossed out depends on how critical his statements are to that case. And while I've been giving you the long-winded answer, I see our counsellor friend has posted with the short-form answer. Thank you both for the clarification. I would think TV shows, movies tweak this because it makes the action of arresting a suspect that much more dramatic but it does ingrain you with the sense that if the cops don't read it to you, then it doesn't count. This goes along with another over-used trope that I know is bull where the police have the chalk or tape outline of the murder victim's body position. For example, I recently watched a re-run of an X-Files episode where a hooker was murdered in a hotel room while in bed. Mulder walks into the room and there's a tape outline of her body's position on the bed itself! Unbelievable.
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Post by Commander Benson on Sept 8, 2021 19:39:07 GMT -5
Welcome at last, Commander Benson . I've long hoped you'd make the trip over to visit this neighborhood. We Silver Agers here (In both interest and appearance) can always use more Silver Age expertise and enthusiasm, and you are rightly celebrated for having both. I have been too busy to write back at the Captain Comics site to thank you for the recent quiz... I am ashamed I didn't do better, but it always provides a fun and fascinating excursion into the past. Please, please don't be a stranger here. PS: Do you keep a list of DC characters who were introduced in the Silver Age and have never ever showed up again since? I dare say there aren't many, given the number of ret-cons, re-imaginings and re-brandings we've endured since. And again, welcome aboard! Thank you for the warm welcome, sir. I had discovered this place a little over a year ago when a Google search of my name prompted a hit to oneof the threads here in which one of my Deck Log articles was cited. I've read a couple of the series' reviews here and followed some of the threads. I never joined in because so many of the threads are pages deep, to the order of three-digit numbers. Too many to go through and make sure something I might say hadn't already been covered. But when I saw this thread, only eight pages at the time, and the question about waiting periods for missing persons, I had to jump in. Don't sweat not responding to my Deck Log entry with the answers to this year's Silver-Age Challenge. Fraser Sherman was the only one to reply. I'm just glad you had fun. That's the whole point of it. And, neg, I've never kept any sort of list of obscure Silver-Age DC characters. Mainly because, without research, I really don't know which ones have or haven't been revived. By sheer happenstance, I know DC tried something with Ultra, the Multi-Alien, a few years back, and if DC will revive Ultra, it will revive anyone. The only one off the top of my head whom I'm pretty sure hasn't been revived is Van Benson, who was acting editor of the Daily Planet back in the summer of 1966.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Sept 9, 2021 14:10:19 GMT -5
Thank you for the warm welcome, sir. I had discovered this place a little over a year ago when a Google search of my name prompted a hit to oneof the threads here in which one of my Deck Log articles was cited. I've read a couple of the series' reviews here and followed some of the threads. I never joined in because so many of the threads are pages deep, to the order of three-digit numbers. Too many to go through and make sure something I might say hadn't already been covered. But when I saw this thread, only eight pages at the time, and the question about waiting periods for missing persons, I had to jump in. (...) Huh, that brought a smile to my face. The reason I only occasionally lurk at the Comics Round Table (never even bothered signing in) is because there's just so many (so, so many) threads that seem to go on endlessly. It's quite overwhelming. I find the CCF is more homey precisely because of its smaller scale - although I've noticed that some of the regulars here, like the esteemed Prince Hal, also participate there - to say nothing of the aforementioned Fraser Sherman, a fellow contributor over at the Atomic Junk Shop.
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Post by impulse on Sept 9, 2021 14:28:16 GMT -5
Wow, we have so many folks moonlighting. What, we aren't good enough for you?
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Post by Prince Hal on Sept 9, 2021 14:39:31 GMT -5
Thank you for the warm welcome, sir. I had discovered this place a little over a year ago when a Google search of my name prompted a hit to oneof the threads here in which one of my Deck Log articles was cited. I've read a couple of the series' reviews here and followed some of the threads. I never joined in because so many of the threads are pages deep, to the order of three-digit numbers. Too many to go through and make sure something I might say hadn't already been covered. But when I saw this thread, only eight pages at the time, and the question about waiting periods for missing persons, I had to jump in. (...) Huh, that brought a smile to my face. The reason I only occasionally lurk at the Comics Round Table (never even bothered signing in) is because there's just so many (so, so many) threads that seem to go on endlessly. It's quite overwhelming. I find the CCF is more homey precisely because of its smaller scale - although I've noticed that some of the regulars here, like the esteemed Prince Hal , also participate there - to say nothing of the aforementioned Fraser Sherman, a fellow contributor over at the Atomic Junk Shop. I originally dropped in there because of the great columns by Commander Benson and Craig (Mr. Silver Age) Shutt, both of whom I had followed for years in the Comics Buyers Guide. Shutt doesn't do much there at all anymore so far as I can see, but the Commander's columns on Silver Age comics and other interesting topics, like his beloved holiday essays on Thanksgiving and Christmas (though they don't appear as frequently as I'd like), are the prime reason I check in there, and the only thread I've ver commented on, IIRC. Highly recommended.
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Post by Prince Hal on Sept 9, 2021 14:41:09 GMT -5
Wow, we have so many folks moonlighting. What, we aren't good enough for you? Stop it; I'm melting...
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,588
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Post by Confessor on Sept 9, 2021 18:00:39 GMT -5
Wow, we have so many folks moonlighting. What, we aren't good enough for you? It's not you, it's them. Honestly, it meant nothing. They were thinking of you the whole time!!
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Post by berkley on Sept 9, 2021 23:24:17 GMT -5
Too many to go through and make sure something I might say hadn't already been covered. Don't let that worry you: I only have about five different things to say and I just keep repeating them over and over. So far everyone's been too polite to mention it!
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Post by tonebone on Sept 10, 2021 7:58:43 GMT -5
In this case it was a report of a missing child that was met with "we can't do anything for 72 hours." Absolute lunacy that should not begin to ever be in any media at this point in time.
You couldn't be righter, counsellor. (I didn't see specificity of that statement when I read it---my oversight.) No police department anywhere would fail to take immediate action to locate a missing child. And the scriptwriter who came up with that nonsense would have been advised of his absurdity by a simple Google search that would've taken all of five minutes or less to inform him of how law enforcement really responds to missing children.
Are you familiar with Bob Ingersoll and his column "The Law Is a Ass"? Ingersoll was a Cleveland lawyer who spent many years in the Cuyahoga County Public Defenders office until his retirement in 2009. In his "The Law Is a Ass" column, he routinely skewered the misapplications and misunderstandings of the law that appeared in primarily comics books, but also in television series and in films. The column has more than three hundred entries, showing that there is no dearth of writers who can't be bothered to actually, you know, check with someone with an actual law degree before coming up with their nonsense. (Ingersoll has a standing offer to check the legal propriety of any comic-book writer's scripts.)
Ingersoll's column is accessible on line, and I look in on it from time to time. I understand how he feels; I feel the same irritation when a television or comic-book script gets basic facts about the military wrong.
I really hate the Law & Order shows.
I enjoy the parent show, but there is one point that rankles, and it occurs in almost every episode. That's when the detectives want to question someone, either a witness or a suspect against whom they have not developed any kind of probable cause (i.e., a "person of interest") and they compel that subject to go down to the precinct house. Usually something like, "We need to talk to you downtown," and the detectives escort him to the next scene where they grill him in an interrogation room.
For everyone else reading this, NOOOOOOOOOO, the police cannot make you accompany them against your will unless they arrest you. And they can't arrest you without probable cause. If they just want to talk to you as part of their investigation, they can ask you to come down to the stationhouse, but they can't compel you to do so. Every once in a rare while on the show, the detectives will attempt to bring someone to the precinct to question him and that subject will ask, "Am I under arrest?" No, he isn't, and there's nothing the detectives can do. Believe me, I'm not an advocate for the defence; I'm a lock'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key kind of guy. But I also believe in the Constitution.
Similar to Bob Ingersoll's column, Polite Dissent was a blog by Dr. Scott Morrison that went into errors in comics and TV shows when it came to medicine and biology. Sadly the site itself is down, but it's still accessible through the archive:
His favourite topics were psychic nosebleeds (why does a telepath get a nosebleed when they are using their powers?) and the old "using only 10% of their brain"
Considering the Psychic Nosebleed... I remember reading an article a couple of years ago about people who have chronic persistent runny/bloody nose. The article said that it could be BRAIN FLUID. I think of that every time I see the Psychic Nosebleed, now, and I think, "Well, yeah, of course his nose is bleeding. HOW COULD IT NOT? It's BRAIN FLUID!!!"
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Post by tonebone on Sept 10, 2021 8:08:07 GMT -5
hmm. . . .
ok, I'm not sure if this would count as a myth tho, because times have certainly changed and in the 70's-80's, the police often DID wait up to 72 hours to do much investigation when someone was reported missing.
it might not have been a hard "rule". . . but I recently watched an excellent docu-series on 5 serial killers operating in the USA from late 70's-early 90's (Gacy, Bundy, Green River Killer, BTK, & Dahmer), and the main reason that (in particular) Gacy & Bundy got away with it for so long was due to the Police waiting ~3 days before actively pursuing a Missing person (to see if they make their way back home eventually).
to be fair, the fact they all also primarily targeted groups that no one would really notice right away if they went missing (such as Prostitutes, or teenagers during the height of runaway/hitchiking times).
the docuseries actually made a point that Police work changed in the mid 80's to NOT wait up to 3 days to start investigating when someone is reported missing.
which is NOT to say you don't have a point - it doesn't seem like it ever was a hard/fast rule. . .. but it did factor into Missing Persons cases back then (per the Docuseries).
I've lurked on this forum for over a year. I kept getting those "You've visited X number of times---why don't you register and join the conversation?" prompts. But I never did, mainly because I'm a generation or two behind you folks and didn't figure I had much to offer. However, this is something to which I can speak with authority. Most people get their legal training from watching television and, therefore, have come to believe a great deal of completely wrong things about the law are true. Some examples of what people "know" are true (but aren't): that you have to be read the Miranda rights when you are arrested; that if you are involved in a traffic accident (with no injuries) and your cars are driveable, you still have to leave them right where they are; that a shoplifter has to actually leave the store with the concealed merchandise before he can be arrested; that you are entitled to one telephone call if you are arrested. That a person has to be missing for 24/48/whatever hours before he can be reported is another one of those television-inspired law-enforcement myths. The Crime Control Act of 1990, among its many provisions, requires that law-enforcement agencies have no waiting period before taking a report of a missing person. So if you call the police and report that your spouse has been missing for only fifteen minutes, they are required to make a case report. What counts, though, is what happens afterward. No, the cops aren't going to mobilise search parties and start patrolling the city streets looking for the absent spouse---in most instances. The actions taken by the police are going to depend on the totality of the circumstances: length of the disappearance, age of the missing person, mental capability of the missing person, any suspicious physical indications. A normal, mentally sound adult who just hasn't come home yet is not going to be investigated by the police, probably within a predetermined departmental policy of twenty-four or forty-eight hours. That's because there's no indication of foul play. The police handle criminal activity, and it's not a crime for a person to absent himself. The police will check back with the complainant in a day or two and see if that reported missing person has returned. He usually has. If not, then an investigation will commence. Naturally, certain conditions will prompt an immediate investigation. If the person reported missing is a young child or an elderly person who suffers from dementia or some other mental impairment, yes, then the police will fall out in search parties immediately. Suppose someone reports his neighbour is missing, and when the police check the person's house, they lift the partially closed garage door and find the victim's car there, with the driver's-side door open, her purse on the floor with its contents strewn, and a puddle of blood. Oh, yeah, you can bet an investigation will be launched immediately. In short, any reported absence which carries indications that a crime was committed will be investigated on the spot. But, without the missing person being a young child or impaired elder, or lacking signs of a crime against the missing person, no, the police aren't going to go out and look. This frustrates parents of teen-age children. Let's say it's Friday night, and seventeen-year-old Missy went to the movies with some of her girlfriends. Her parents told her to be home by mid-night, her regular curfew, and now it's three a.m., and no Missy. Mom and Dad call the police and report their darling missing. Yes, an officer will show up and take a missing-person report, but---and this is what stuns most parents, mainly because they got their knowledge of the law from television---no, he won't go out and look for Missy. That's because it's not unusual for a seventeen-year-old to stay out past curfew. It's also not unusual for a seventeen-year-old to tell her parents that she's going out to do one thing, but really going out to do another. And no matter how much Mom and Dad entreat the officer that Missy is a good daughter and wouldn't stay out past her curfew, that's not going to launch an immediate hunt for Missy, either. Because Mom and Dad are often blind to the things their "good" kids pull. Now, if some indications develop that foul play did happen to Missy, yes, of course, the police will investigate immediately. But, no, they aren't going to look right away if, in all likelihood, the reason that Missy isn't home yet is because she's still partying with the high-school football team. In all fairness to the examples from fiction, the reporting person usually says something like "The police won't do anything for twenty-four hours." and that's true, under the parameters I described above. But if the reporting person in the story insists that the police won't take a missing-person report for twenty-four hours, that's incorrect at least since 1990. Hope this helps. The problem with squashing these kinds of tropes is that for older folks (like myself), 1990 seems like recent history. So I have 20+ prior years of TV experience that tells me the waiting period is true (which it was, to varying degrees), and that overshadows the "recent" developments in law enforcement. It's hard to break the consistently reinforced ideas presented in media, over such a long period of time. Just imagine how long it took for new laws and edicts to trickle down to the common man in the middle ages... The king could make a new law and it could be a generation before the man on the street knew about it.
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Post by tonebone on Sept 10, 2021 8:13:52 GMT -5
How can something so big--move so fast?? Yeah, they've obviously never been to a Krispy Kreme on free donut day.
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Post by impulse on Sept 10, 2021 9:28:34 GMT -5
Don't go! I can change! Actually....sniff.. I probably should go change. Okay, so it IS me. Shower time!
Oh, and don't worry about long threads. You think I remember what I said last week, let alone 50 pages ago?
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Post by Graphic Autist on Sept 10, 2021 18:46:44 GMT -5
How about the hero (I’m looking at YOU, Spider-Man) encounters a crook breaking the law. The hero (usually Spider-Man) foils the crook’s nefarious actions, and leaves them strung (webbed) up for the police, sometimes with a note.
How are the police supposed to convict a criminal without any evidence of wrong-doing other than a note from a vigilante (that wears a red and blue costume for the most part)?
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