It seems jurors these days are watching too much television. The "CSI Effect" is making it hard for prosecutors to convince juries, even in white-collar trials, without sophisticated forensic evidence, like they've seen on the popular television drama. Now this is pretty absurd. It's not like an accountant embezzling money is going to leave a body, or blood and semen samples for investigators to run through their various electronic doo-hickeys! Apparently the "CSI Effect" hurt a securites fraud case in Alabama against HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy.
Alice Martin, the State Prosecutor for the Northern District of Alabama said,
"...Jurors in post-verdict interviews said "we needed a fingerprint on one of the documents or we needed him [Mr Scrushy] to say the word 'fraud' on the audiotape" that was secretly recorded by a former HealthSouth finance chief.
"They said, 'they always do fingerprints on TV'," Ms Martin said.
Now the one thing about the post verdict interview that I really take issue with, is the idea that he had to say the word 'fraud' on tape. Come on, people! How often will a person committing fraud actually say the word fraud while he's committing the crime? I can see it now.
Deep within the bowels of the secret headquarters of HealthSouth, Richard Scrushy and his cabal of co-conspirators plan their next caper...
Richard Scrushy: "Welcome to the fraud meeting, my fellow frauds."
Goon #1: "Yeah, boss! I can't wait to commit some fraud!"
Goon #2: "FRAUD, FRAUD, FRAUD! YEAH!!!"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment