CBS persists in airing ‘Bull,’ giving us episode 2 on 9/27/16, “The Woman in 8D.” Alleged trial consultant Dr. Bull’s crime spree continues unabated, along with the ridiculous nonsense that mostly comprises this show. As ever, fiction is great; outright falsehood is not. And in a year in which the American public is being told that its institutions are rigged – government, financial markets, the media, elections – it is harmful that the public is now also being told that its justice system is rigged. Rigged by a smarmy, cocky, godlike consultant who single-handedly somehow has the power to empanel any jury he wants to achieve any outcome he wants, committing crimes, blowing his clients’ attorney-client privilege as well as anything that would be covered by work product protections, flouting all laws of procedure, not getting the attorneys who employ him disbarred and on and on. Look, this isn’t like complaining, “That TV surgeon used a clamp instead of forceps,” or a fictional TV chef using a mandoline when she should be using a rasp. While annoying, those are errors, not whole-cloth falsehoods that give a recklessly false picture of the world depicted.
And, seriously… ELEVEN mock trials? And they don’t even lead you to the OBVIOUS THEME that the defendant is a hero? Ugh.
Join two accomplished trial consultants, Rich Matthews and Richard Gabriel (Decision Analysis) as they discuss this show.
Juryology: Art & Science of Jury Persuasion 