Series / In Justice (2006)

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In Justice is a short lived TV show that aired in 2006. It centers around the National Justice Project, headed by ambitious attorney David Swain and former police detective Charles Conti. The NJP basically investigates people who are in prison who claim they're innocent of the crimes they were sent in for, and if they are, tries to get them out of prison. The series is set in Oakland, California, where the NJP's based.

Notable for starring Jason O'Mara, Kyle MacLachlan, Constance Zimmer and Marisol Nichols.

Unrelated to the DC Fighting Game franchise of the same name.

Tropes:

• Acquitted Too Late: In "The Public Burning" (since they may have gotten the killer despite failing to save the client) but also in Conti's background (he pressured an innocent man to confess). Later he turned out to be innocent, but had already killed himself. Conti admits that this is what drove him to join the National Justice Project.
• The Alibi: Several cases heavily hinge on proving or disproving the alibi that a person has for a crime.
• Artistic License – Law Enforcement: In the pilot a corrupt FBI agent is confronted by agents with Internal Affairs written on their badges. The FBI Internal Affairs division is called the Office of Professional Responsibility though.
• Asshole Victim: In "Side Man" Conti sucker punches Richard Rocca, a very slimy aide to California's Attorney General, over threatening that he'll expose Conti’s relationship (allegedly illicit) with his ex-wife. Swain, whom Rocca is a persistent thorn to, is exultant after hearing this and wishes he did it himself.
• The Atoner: Conti is still haunted by the fact that he inadvertently drove an innocent man to kill himself.
• Bank Robbery: "Cost of Freedom" centers on a man who's been convicted of murdering a loan officer and security guard during a bank robbery. It turns out that the perpetrators had committed multiple other bank robberies too.
• Better Manhandle the Murder Weapon: Javier in "Crossing the Line" got his fingerprints onto the knife used to murder his friend Felix pulling it out helping him. Swain grouses how dumb that was. Jake, a forensic expert, confirms it would have left different prints if he'd actually stabbed Felix, confirming he's not actually the murderer.
• Bigot with a Badge: Sonya's brother Cruz was railroaded on a murder he didn't commit largely because of the lead detective on the case, a racist against Latinos who had made the evidence fit him.
• Bluffing the Murderer: Conti takes down the murderer in "Confessions" by claiming that the judge allowed them to test the DNA on the murder weapon, and that the DNA matched the killer. The murderer falls for it and confesses, allowing them to test it for real.
• The Cartel: "Crossing the Line" reveals that the victim was really murdered by Hermanos de la Agonia (Brothers of Agony), a brutal Mexican cartel smuggling crystal meth and trafficking women for sex slavery, as he witnessed this. Lupe, who knew about this too, is afraid to talk at first as she's afraid that they'll also murder her.
• Caught on Tape: In "Cost of Freedom" a corrupt ATF agent is caught admitting to helping an informant frame another man when the informant's wearing a wire, after making a deal with Internal Affairs.
• Clear Their Name: This is the work of the National Justice Project, taking on cases from convicted prisoners claiming they didn't do it. Every case we see, it turns out they're right and eventually cleared.
• Deconstruction: The show is NOT afraid to demonstrate police incompetence or the corruption of higher officials. The first episode alone has a prominent member of the FBI being arrested for framing an innocent man, another has a prosecutor coaching witnesses to get a desired verdict, and several other episodes feature incompetent experts and or witnesses who either failed to remember properly or outright lied. "The Public Burning" also demonstrates that the typical ending where the innocent man is saved doesn't usually happen.
• Dirty Cop:
  • "Badge of Honor" centers on a former cop convicted of killing a fellow officer who'd accused him of corruption. It's revealed not only was he innocent of that, but wasn't even corrupt to begin with. He had testified against dirty prison guards while incarcerated too.
  • Other episodes however play this straight, with cops willing to frame people who they believe are guilty, or simply so their valuable informant (who had committed murder) is protected.
    • In the pilot episode, the killer is the son of a high-ranking FBI agent, and the agent actively worked to frame the client in order to protect his son (when the son is exposed as the killer, the official is arrested for obstruction of justice).
    • In "Cost of Freedom" an ATF agent frames a man to protect a valuable informant for two murders the informant's committed.
• Disproportionate Retribution: In "Side Man" the NJP's client is doing thirty years on a third strike simply for stealing a case of vodka. His precious strikes were also for thefts. While he maintains his innocence for two, Brianna and Swain agree that if he'd done this still would be completely excessive.
• Downer Ending: "The Public Burning" ends with the NJP unable to save a mentally disabled man on Death Row, who's innocent, from being executed.
• Eco-Terrorist: A couple who the NJP defends in "Lovers" were convicted of murder and terrorism for a bombing which killed a waiter aimed at gas-guzzling cars. It turns out that a man they knew did this however, not them.
• Everyone Has Standards: The judge in "Confessions" is kind of a jerk who only cares about finality (he only reverses his verdict after Swain gets himself placed in prison, causing a public outcry that forces the judge to reverse his decision and allow DNA testing). However, after the DA tries to continue pressing Conti even after he's clearly miserable for reciting a rather painful story, he tells the DA to back off.
• False Confession: In his backstory, Conti got a suspect to confess that he'd committed rape and murder. The man hanged himself in prison... and then it turned out he was innocent when a man arrested for a different crime was not only a match for DNA but also confessed. Conti has been haunted by the case ever since, and this inspired him to join the National Justice Project working for innocent prisoners so they can be exonerated. In "Confessions" when this comes up, the NJP is defending a teenager who was badgered into confessing he murdered his sister, which he didn't do, including repeatedly lying to him and giving him a pseudoscientific Lie Detector test which he failed that has no proof behind it.
• Felony Murder: In "The Ten Percenter" the prisoner the NJP defends was convicted for supposedly being the accomplice to a burglary, with one of the burglars who did this murdering the couple who they found at the house. Therefore, she was convicted of murder too, but actually wasn't their accomplice.
• Frame-Up: Several cases, though in some the actual perpetrator is not involved-it's just authorities wanting to insure the conviction of suspects they believe are really guilty. So to them it's a case of Framing the Guilty Party.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: The pilot involves a jewelry store robbery that two off duty Marines committed, ending in a woman's murder after they got into a gunfight with the owner. It turns out that just one was actually involved however.
• Good Shepherd: Father Ortiz, the victim in "The Public Burning", was beloved for aiding the poor and vulnerable of his parish. One woman gave up being a gangbanger and became a social worker under his influence. He'd operated a domestic violence shelter to help abused women, and it appears that's what got him killed, as one woman's abusive husband grew enraged at him trying to get her away. A nun, Sister Quinn, from the same episode also aids the man who's been convicted of his murder (but probably didn't do it) and is a staunch anti-death penalty activist who has helped others like him before too.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Nina in "Lovers" confesses to the crime that she along with her boyfriend were wrongly convicted of so he'll get out. Swain later falsely confesses to having induced this, risking his law license, so Nina can go free too.
• Human Traffickers: Hermanos de la Agonia in "Crossing the Line" turns out not to be just trafficking drugs, but women used as sex slaves. The operation is raided and the slaves freed by the police toward the end.
• The Illegal: "Crossing the Line" has a material witness named Lupe, a Mexican in the US illegally, whom the NJP tracks down as she's getting deported along with many other people.
• The Informant:
  • In "Cost of Freedom" an ATF informant turns out to be the perpetrator. He was so useful his handler helped him frame a man for two murders he'd committed. Swain tells Conti how the FBI did the same thing with an informant of theirs too.
  • One witness against the condemned prisoner Frank Benner in "The Public Burning" was a jailhouse snitch who lied about saying Benner confessed to murder. He'd been doing this often in return for leniency. After the NJP finds this, the informant lays out how he did it and admits he'd lied.
• Internal Affairs:
  • In the pilot a corrupt FBI Agent gets arrested by fellow agents when it turns out he had framed a man so his son, who'd committed the crimes, would go free.
  • "Cost of Freedom" has a corrupt ATF agent who had framed a man to protect an informant also getting arrested when the ATF learns what he did.
• It's All My Fault: In "Cost of Freedom" Tyler Buckner comes to the NJP saying his dad's murder conviction was his fault since some of the evidence was that his dad recently fired his shotgun which police said he used for killing two men. They did a test showing it had been recently fired, which his dad denied doing. Unbeknownst to him, Tyler had fired it at some squirrels.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Swain is kind of an asshole, but it is made very clear that he does ultimately want to help innocent people as well.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Even though he's extremely callous about it, the Justice in "The Public Burning" is technically correct when he points out that a.) they can't put the new suspect at the scene of the crime, b.) they can't eliminate their client, and c.) the case has dragged on for 8 years and the sentence does need to be carried out.
  • In "Confessions", which involves a teenager who confessed to murdering his sister, the prosecutor points out that Conti used many of the same tactics and why it isn't okay now that he's a member of the National Justice Project. Conti counters by pointing out the one time those techniques didn't work (or they did, but the guy was innocent)....and resulted in an innocent man losing his life.
• Karma Houdini: MAYBE Eli Stillwell in "The Public Burning". We don't see anything happen on screen, but the last we see Conti in the episode he's confronting Stillwell in his house and the team can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he deliberately lied to the police about the alibi, meaning that they could well have nailed him offscreen.
• Last-Minute Reprieve: Subverted in "The Public Burning". At the end of the episode Swain meets with the Justice and lays out the new evidence namely that a.) a member of the church board had been beating his wife, b.) that the victim had known about it and tried to stop it, and c.) that not only had the suspect's wife retracted the alibi she gave him, they can prove that she was at the shelter on the night of the murder. The Justice responds that they can't put him at the scene, and that a suspicion isn't enough. What's more, the case has dragged on for 8 years, has seen two emergency petitions and many appeals.
• Last-Name Basis: Charles Conti is usually called by his last name among the NJP staff.
• Miscarriage of Justice: The premise of the show; especially apparent in "The Public Burning" when Frank Benner (a disabled man) is executed for killing a priest. The team finds compelling proof that the church president was the true killer, but the Chief Justice refuses to grant a stay.
• Mistaken Identity:
  • "Brothers and Sisters" shows the prisoner was convicted as a result of being mistaken for her half-sister in the dark, who she did not even know about. Both closely resembled the other, with the half-sister killing their father.
  • In "Another Country" the NJP defends a man convicted of a burglary and attempted murder he didn't commit partly through a mistaken eyewitness identification from the victim, who had been coached by the police.
  • In "Victims" a man convicted of two rapes mistakenly got identified by one survivor, due to seeing him only briefly while having a tainted lineup (he was the only one who wore a jacked as the rapist had).
• Murder the Hypotenuse:
  • In "Another Country" the victim was actually beaten by her husband, who had been cheating with another woman. He convinced her a burglar attacked her, and in her addled state she believed this.
  • Javier in "Crossing the Line" was convicted of murdering his friend Felix over Felix's girlfriend Lupe. However, in reality Javier didn't murder Felix and he was only Lupe's friend.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In "Victims" a rape survivor realizes she had identified the wrong man and asks for his forgiveness after he's cleared. He reassures her that she made an honest mistake.
• My Greatest Failure: For Conti, this is Andrew Connolly. Connolly had been accused of rape and murder; Conti lied in order to get him to confess. Ultimately, DNA proved that Connolly was innocent.....after he had hung himself in prison.
• The Needs of the Many: A corrupt ATF agent in "Cost of Freedom" shows no regret for having framed a man so he could protect his informant, as that let him take down a far-right militia who would have murdered thousands in attacks they planned.
• Never Suicide: "Crossing the Line" has Curt Walters left hanging as a supposed suicide, with a note which takes responsibility for the crimes uncovered. Though everyone is aware he's just a fall guy, they can't prove it.
• Nice Girl: Alyssa Hill is the client in "The Ten Percenter". A former paralegal, she's spent her time in prison helping fellow prisoners with their cases free of charge and taught others how to read. Because of it she's naturally very popular. When she's gotten exonerated and released some women whom she helped get her an apartment with the rent paid for a year in thanks, reducing her to tears.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: Initially Swain doesn't want to take Dan Wainwright's case in the pilot. However, when Conti and Brianna speak to Ryan Axelrod (the other prime suspect), Ryan's father threatens Swain by implying that he'll have the FBI investigate Swain's clients. This threat ultimately convinces Swain that Wainwright might actually be innocent, and as a result he digs deeper, ultimately exposing Ryan as the real killer and getting Calvin jailed for his role in framing Dan. If Calvin had just refrained from threatening Swain, he would have gotten away with it.
• "Not So Different" Remark: In "Confessions", Conti attacks getting a confession by lying to a suspect. He later gets the real killer to confess by lying, as Sonya points out. Conti acknowledges her point, with them simply saying that life's complicated.
• Outlaw Couple: In "Lovers" the NJP defends two convicted EcoTerrorists who were a couple and still love each other while imprisoned. While they didn't commit violent acts, the two were involved with illegal nonviolent environmental activism.
• Patricide: In "Brothers and Sisters", the woman whom the NJP defends is serving time after having gotten convicted of murdering her father. However, it turns out that her half-sister is the one who did this.
• Persecuting Prosecutor: In "The Ten Percenter" Swain is dating a judge who'd been the prosecutor on his latest client's case. After he gets his client exonerated Swain is disgusted and confronts her over the fact that she coached witnesses for getting the conviction. He dumps her when she's totally unapologetic and says it's no problem, despite costing his client ten years of her life in prison.
• Police Are Useless: Played with. The show has no qualms about showing corruption or incompetence, but they also manage to be surprisingly nuanced.
  • For instance, in "Confessions" the client was falsely convicted because the police had lied to get him to confess. Ultimately, the team uses the exact same lie in order to trick the real killer into confessing, and at the end Conti grudgingly concedes that it isn't really different from what the cops did.
  • The cops in "Golden Boy" are also revealed to have missed evidence for an entirely understandable reason (the perp was a minor at the time and his fingerprints wouldn't have shown up in the database, and the police tape actually was pretty incriminating).
• Race Against the Clock: "The Public Burning" involves the NJP trying to save a man from his execution just one week away. They fail, despite compelling evidence that he was innocent.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: "Victims" sees the NJP take the case of a man who's been convicted of two rapes. Brianna expresses misgivings about this, worried they'll undermine rape survivors generally by questioning if the raped women had identified the right man, Swain meanwhile worries it could hurt their efforts to get innocent prisoners exonerated, as rape just isn't the same as other crimes. It's especially notable as they had defended prisoners convicted of multiple murder before with no such issue.
• Revealing Cover-Up: FBI Agent Calvin Axelrod's threat to Swain to drop the case or he'll bring the FBI down on one of Swain's clients in the pilot is what ultimately makes Swain consider that Dan Wainwright may in fact be innocent, which ultimately leads to them exposing Calvin's son Ryan as the real killer and leading to Calvin being arrested for obstruction of justice.
• Right Through the Wall: Swain and Conti are told that there's an Internet porn company next door from their offices while hearing loud sex sounds through the wall.
• Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: In "Cost of Freedom" it turns out that an informant from a far-right militia is the perpetrator. He killed two men during a bank robbery, and his ATF handler actually helped to frame someone so they could keep him as a source.
• Serial Rapist: "Victims" involves a man wrongly convicted of two rapes. It turns out that the actual rapist had raped multiple more women after he was arrested too, all with the same m.o.
• Sinister Shiv: Javier in "Crossing the Line" is nearly shanked by a Mexican cartel while imprisoned since they fear he'll talk about their operations. He manages to fight the attacker off and gets put into solitary for protection.
• Spotting the Thread:
  • Conti realizes Dan Wainwright may have been framed in the pilot as the apparently quite solid evidence which implicated him (his fingerprints taken from the murder weapon, a shotgun) had him holding it upside down. It's revealed he's right.
  • In "Cost of Freedom" an eyewitness turns out to be lying, with Conti learning this because he said he'd seen a getaway vehicle's rear plate as it sped off. This was actually the front plate however, so he couldn't have.
• Tattooed Crook:
  • A Latino gang leader who's very heavily tattooed turns out to be the person who had ordered the murder in "Golden Boy".
  • A Latino prisoner in "Crossing the Line" with a gang tattoo on the back of his head arranges a murder attempt by a Mexican cartel against another inmate.
• Too Dumb to Live: The woman Sonya's brother was wrongly convicted of murdering had sold drugs for a gang. She betrayed them through cutting this to pocket more profits than they allowed, with her being murdered for it.
• Twofer Token Minority: Swain wants to make his staff look more diverse, though he only has two people of color at the time, a black woman and Asian woman. He gets a black workman who pretends he's one as well, and later hires the Latina Sonya as well. The staff is mostly white and male overall.