How come nobody ever asks for a lawyer?
This one comes up a lot, though, ironically, it’s Steven Bochco’s own fault that viewers complain so much about it. On Hill Street Blues, every single suspect brought into the station was quickly rushed into the protection of noble public defender Joyce Davenport, leading all TV cop show fans to assume that all suspects automatically made use of their Miranda rights to counsel. According to NYPD Blue producer and former real-life NYPD homicide detective Bill Clark (see above), in real life, suspects understand their rights, but often choose not to exercise them out of naive optimism. They figure that if they ask for a lawyer, they’ll be stuck in the legal system (and therefore in lock-up) for at least 48 hours, and if they weren’t being looked at hard as a suspect before, the cops are really going to bear down on them now. If, on the other hand, they try to speak for themselves, they figure maybe they can come up with some kind of plausible excuse/alibi and get away scot free. Whether
