Conservative Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Cyrus Garza, faces impeachment for his marginal conduct off the bench unless he votes the party line on the appeal of a convicted cop-killer. Garza writes the majority opinion ordering a reversal of the conviction, and announces his resignation from the court after reading the decision. The door is now open for Garza to arrange a partnership in a noted law firm and to argue the appeal of the case of the alleged cop-killer. Relying partly on legal precedent that he wrote himself, Garza convinces the appellate court judge to allow the introduction of new evidence during the appeal. This is where the plot gets all too familiar. A witness vital to the case disappears. Another, uncooperative, witness is hiding the whereabouts of a potentially crucial witness who wasn't known before and hasn't testified. How does Garza pull victory from the jaws of defeat? Rather than spoil it, I won't say here what happens. But anyone who has seen The Verdict, staring Paul Newman, can see this one coming for miles. The plot devices were lifted entirely from the 1982 film. It might be forgivable that a legal drama will involve deviation from actual legal procedure. Matlock and Perry Mason were very successful legal drama series - even though neither lawyer ever practiced law within the rules of legal procedure. Outlaw, may be an apt title for this show, as it seems it will follow the path of those legal thrillers where the thrill is more important than strict adherence to legal procedure. Fine. But what isn't forgivable is to serve warmed-over leftovers for plot lines. The vanishing witness, the sneaky way of finding the hidden witness, the smoking gun that the hidden witness kept for all those years, are each clever and valid devices for moving the story past a point of conflict and crisis. Any one, or even two, of those would have contributed to this script and served it well. Using all three was over the limit. Not since The Flintstones "reprised" The Honeymooners has one script ripped of another in such a wholesale fashion.
Review of Outlaw
