The CSI Effect

Some commentators, and indeed prosecutors & judges, have coined the phrase "CSI effect" to refer to juries that expect evidence comparable to what you see on TV in order to deliver a conviction. "Surely, if the defendant is guilty" they think "there is a roll of duct tape with fibres whose tear pattern matches the grid on the ball of their shoe that left a fibre in the stomach of the victim when she made a drink using the same ice scoop that was used last week when the crime took place in back of the neighborhood Baskin Robbins." That is not how evidence works in the real world.

I have decided that the CSI effect is something entirely different - it is when you are home on a Thursday night & have decided to leave the books on the shelf & just chill out and watch some crappy tv, but even the crappy tv is too crappy because none of the networks even try to put on good shows on the same night as CSI.