Harry’s Law, in yesterday’s episode called Head Games, takes up the Occupy Wall Street Message in full form.The episode deals with a woman whose home is foreclosed; so in desperation she goes and robs one of the bank’s branches. The team’s defense for the woman is the so called Outrageous Government Misconduct defense. In the closing arguments, the Harry’s team cites the outrageous misconduct of the US Government in the Mortgage Meltdown.
The arguments are savvy and up to date. Thousands of Bank’s Mortgage instruments were given highest AAA ratings by the bond agencies right up to the moment where turnover transactions revealed them to be junk or worthless. Derivative CDOS that supposedly protected lenders from these bad debt were themselves useless because the carriers had too many and their valuation was risk deficient. And the mortgage companies bamboozled customers in contravention of their fiduciary trust obligations duping them to take on more debt and at high variable rates than they could afford. All of these financial parties then relied on the government to bail them out when the financial system seized up. Yet none of these financial agents of great misfortune were criminally prosecuted, none of them served time, and most are back on the Street. See the episode here for the exact argumentation.
This is the first time I have seen a popular TV show make the case of recent events in so unequivocal terms. Even 9/11 took until the tenth year anniversary to get coverage of the events [CSI/NY this Fall] or following a 9/11 action more than tangentially. Ditto for Iraq and Afghanistan – even NCIS or FlashPoint deal with these war issues peripherally. In contrast, Harrys Law took the Outrageous Government Misconduct defense for all its worth in a most compelling closing arument.
Unfortunately, this episode may have been a last hurrah by Harry’s Law writers. The rumor that Harrys Law is being cancelled may have some truth to it because despite the Google Search links to You Tube episodes, they end with this message:
Since all the Harrys Law episodes are hard to find, there appears to be no conspiracy to suppress this episode. Nonetheless one can see why the eviction of Occupy’s Peaceful Protests may achieve “out of sight; out of mind” effectiveness. Will Occupy Movement now find an active Web presence to preserve and promote the Occupy message? Take a fifth and admit NO. Harrys Law got too close to the truth – how can ordinary people observe the Rule of Law when it has been so blatantly bypassed in the Law’s treatment of the malefactors in the Financial Meltdown? Literally, just like in voting and access to politicians, there is the 1% class and the other 99% that make up the Hoi Polloi – the portion of the public to be largely and safely ignored – and thus the 1% answer to different Rules of Law.