On Jan 30, 2026 at 1:53:25 AM PST, ""Adam H. Kerman"" <
ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
Riley and Walker investigate the homicide of a just retired FAA safety investigator. After dispensing with various red herrings, the murderer
is the widow of a dead helicopter pilot whom the victim had found to be responsible for the accidental crash.
Interest choice on the 1 year anniversary of the mid-air collision of
the U.S. Army Sikorsky UH-60L Black Hawk helicopter and American Airlines flight 5342.
The widow subscribed to an AI service that recreated her dead husband,
which told her that the FAA finding was flawed and she should hold the investigator responsible.
In the legal rulings, the judge sustained the defense's motion that her freely offered confession was a Miranda violation. She asked Walker to
pray with her. Defense argued that "some courts" have ruled prayers to
be coercive.
This has to be the most blatant example of "Law & Order Judge Syndrome" we've ever seen. He literally makes up a new Miranda violation just because the defense asks him to, then rules that spousal privilege extends to videos of a dead spouse, all with absolutely no basis in law. And finally, he was about to rule that the woman being given access to talk to the avatar of her dead husband while in Rikers was a "coerced confession" when he was finally, mercifully rendered moot when the defendant stood up in court and
unambiguously declared her guilt.
The judge's only guiding basis for his rulings was, "What will make it harder on the prosecution and therefore create more drama in this episode?"
He must have graduated magna cum laude from L&O Judge School.
Next, the judge sustains the defense motion that recordings of her AI sessions could not be used as evidence in court as the defendant
asserted spousal privilege. She's not married to the recreation, and her husband is still dead.
Skipping Anthony, Price asks Riley and Walker to do somethings as the prosecution can no longer establish motive. You have until the next commercial break!
Price's attitude there was puzzling. He never came out and said it, but he kinda implied that it was their police work that had the case on the ropes.
No, buddy, they delivered you a slam dunk and it was your unhinged judge who never met a defense argument he didn't love that's done that. What more can
you expect of your cops?
And then when one of them actually comes through with an out-of-the-box idea that puts justice back on track, Price freaks out.
Walker comes up with feeding the AI portions of the FAA report not made public so that the widow will finally realize that her husband was at
fault and she killed in vain. It advises her to confess.
And Price kept framing it as "Walker manipulated the algorithm". Well, no. Not unless you define "manipulation" as giving the algorithm *all* the facts on which to base its decision, instead of just half the picture.
--- PyGate Linux v1.5.8
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)