'Jericho' depiction of law v. justice and follow-up interview announcement

January 9, 9:53 PMTV on DVD ExaminerJohn Stahl

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Panel of 'Jericho' members

I genuinely could not go to sleep tonight without thanking all of my fellow "Jericho" rangers who supported me so much in the days leading up to Shaun Daily generously interviewing me on his TV Talk Internet-based show; those of you who called in to thank me for supporting the show also deserve an enormous virtual hug. I wanted to thank you in the most tangible way possible by sharing a few more thoughts on 'Jericho' that are very relevant to me.

While writing this entry, I received a kind e-mail from Shaun inviting me to come back on at 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time next Friday. I accepted and look forward to doing a better job this time. I promise that I will not hang up prematurely.

My primary reasons for enrolling in law school in the mid-90s were steady employment and to make the world a little better place. Perhaps I was naive for not knowing this beforehand, but I learned very quickly that practicing law was merely about basing arguments on the law and not about achieving justice. This disillusionment is one reason that I chose to not practice law.

The fatal shooting in the second season of "Jericho" of the character who clearly deserved a very severe punishment prompted renewed thoughts of the differences between law and justice that affected my life so strongly. In this case, the character was definitely the aggressor in the incident that led to his or her death and was acting purely to conceal evidence of a completely selfish and unjustified crime that he or she had committed.

I want to be very clear that I do not advocate vigilant justice in the real world and think that the fatal shooting of the bad guy on "Jericho" was too rash. However, I fully understand the reason for the killing and would not have been surprised if the bad guy had escaped justice if the deeply flawed judicial system that existed at that point in the show had determined his or her  fate. As a side note, the killing demonstrated the Hollywood model of the villain meeting a violent end.

The concept of law versus justice was also relevant regarding the character who killed the bad guy. In the real world, this person likely would have been convicted of second-degree murder based on acting in the heat of the moment but also might have been convicted of first-degree murder based on the motivating event happening well before the killing of the bad guy. Again, I do not believe in frontier justice but advocate a legal system that always leads to a fair result. I do not know what that would have been in this case but know that the response of the military leader who was governing the town was not just and do not think that it was legal even under martial law.

Thank all of you again for your exceptional support; I look forward to attending a "Jericho" event sometime and promise to travel from Massachusetts to California for the premiere party for the third season.

All of you know the drill by now, but I will still remind you that comments and questions are welcome as additions to this posting or as e-mail to tvdvdguy@gmail.com.