Dragoness Eclectic's Journal

I've learned some important life lessons watching Columbo and Perry Mason and "Murder, She Wrote".

• Don't be the biggest asshole in your family or social group. You'll get murdered.
  
• If you find a dead body, call the police and your lawyer immediately. Do not call your brother/cousin/uncle whose first notion is to hide the evidence and dispose of the body. It makes you look really guilty, and it's probably a felony.
  
• If you find a dead body with the murder weapon laying next to it, don't pick up the weapon! If you do, someone will inevitably barge into the scene and witness you standing over the dead body with the murder weapon in hand.
  
• Don't make death threats, even casually. If you do, someone will inevitably overhear you and tell the cops about it after the person you threatened turns up dead.
  
• Don't blackmail the murderer about their crime. They've already killed someone once; no reason not to make you number two. (Seriously, every time someone in either Columbo or Perry Mason blackmails the murderer, they get murdered. Every Single Time.)
  
• If you're the murderer and you've constructed what you believe is the perfect alibi/frame-up, don't double-down on the frame when Columbo starts questioning your alibi/frame. Just pretend you have no clue why things don't add up--the world is weird that way, isn't it, Lieutenant? Also see next entry.
  
• If Columbo (or J.B. Fletcher) keeps turning up to ask questions about "one more thing", get a very good criminal defense lawyer on retainer, and follow his advice (which will be "Shut the fuck up!"). I recommend Perry Mason. You'll need them.
  
• If J.B. Fletcher or Columbo show up to confront you about the murder, don't add to your felonies by threatening violence. Fletcher and Columbo ALWAYS bring backup of the armed and official variety. Perry Mason does his confrontations in the courtroom, so you have no hope in violence there.
  
• Don't bother faking your alibi by time-shifting the tapes or staging fake phone calls to dead people. Columbo has seen that too many times.
  
• Don't bother threatening Columbo with your friends in high places. They're not going to pull his badge on your say-so, because he has a far higher clearance rate on "homicides committed by rich, influential assholes" than you do.
  

One more thing I've observed watching these shows: Columbo is an idealized police detective. He's courteous, patient, and gets warrants for searches. Likewise, on "Perry Mason", Lt Tragg is another idealized detective: he won't plant evidence, he gets warrants, he doesn't rough suspects up, and he got very angry with one of his sergeants who tried to get rough with the lawyer. Hamilton Burger, the DA, is also an ideal: he's a zealous prosecutor, but not overzealous: he wants justice, not convictions. When he realizes that Perry Mason is right and someone else is the murderer, he drops the case; he doesn't double down. He has openly said that he cares about justice more than scoring convictions, and that convicting an innocent would be unjust. He does sometimes take a lot of convincing that he's wrong, though--he brings charges based on evidence and/or witcnesses, after all.