This is not an exaggeration. It's possible that as a child I may have sat through a show as bad as Outlaw, but I feel thoroughly confident in saying that I have never seen anything worse since at least the early 90's.

We're introduced to Smits in the 2nd scene. He's the focal point of a raucous blackjack table in the main area of casino. He's happens to be a sitting Supreme Court Justice. Sure. He's also reliably conservative and therefore very evil. There's a big death penalty case coming up to the court shortly, so his attractive clerk informs security that he's counting cards. The Supreme Court Justice is promptly dragged away by security. Smits chews out his clerk, "That was a six deck shoe I was beating! Nobody beats a six deck shoe!" There's also this at the casino entrance:


Evidently both Smits's penchant for gambling and his whereabouts are matters of public record, as a group of protesters has assembled outside the casino to berate him for what they assume will be his decision to vote in favor of the death penalty. One particularly saucy protester bursts out of the crowd to initiate the following conversation.

“You’re gonna let Beadle die aren’t you?”

“Let me guess, ACLU”

“Yeah, card-carrying member”

“You know before you go BURN A FLAG in protest, a jury unanimously convicted him of killing a cop”

(30 seconds of arguing)

“How about picking up a copy of the Constitution!”

Then he screws her. Intercourse style. And while she's sleeping he watches a documentary about his recently deceased father, a liberal human rights activist. The narrator of the show, in the most venomous tone possible informs the audience that Smits is "arguably the most conservative justice on the Supreme Court." Smits is on the verge of tears.

At some point Smits hops into a car in a scene that looks like a some kind of shady drug deal. But it's actually much, much worse. It's a man even more evil than Smits himself, a Republican Senator, who demands in no uncertain terms that Smits "had better vote with us this time, or else." He follows it up with "We put you there. We can take you out." and wraps it up by suggesting that Smits hire a bodyguard. I don't know much about the inner workings of the Supreme Court, but....
Back at the court, Smits announces that he's voting against sending the convict to the chair and that he's stepping down from his position. He promptly works his way into a law firm and decides to start working on an appeal for the very case that he just ruled on. Seriously, this is all happening. His top two clerks go with him -- from the Supreme Court to the new office in his kitchen -- they also bring in an obnoxiously slutty PI who says things like "you want to get in my pants, don't you" as an introduction and "I just like your meat" in response to being offered some food at a BBQ. Her most impressive accomplishment probably came as part of a convoluted side investigation where the team needed to determine the temperature of the crack house where the victim's body was found. She walked into an important looking government building after telling her companion "I'll just show them my boobs. They're nice boobs" and somehow she found out that it never got about 70 degrees in the basement of this building...10 years ago....

Then there was this from the opening statement during the appeal trial:

Smits: ….and we will introduce new evidence that proves…

Judge: Excuse me. There is no case that allows you to introduce new evidence on an appeal

Smits: There is one case your honor. This case. Beales. In Beales, the Supreme Court held that federal law does not prohibit the introduction of new evidence on appeals when that evidence can prove the defendant’s innocence.

This is the opinion that Smits himself wrote. Unfortunately, the ploy didn't work, but the team was given enough time to find another back door to introduce new evidence. In a stroke of good fortune, it was an opinion written by the very judge that was hearing this case.

The episode concludes with Smits tracking down the crime technician who worked the scene although she never testified at the trial for some reason. Bear in mind this is something like 10 years after the guy was convicted. She takes the stand at the appeal and informs the court that the victim’s husband’s glasses were at the crime scene and that he threatened her. So she took the glasses and moved into a church in Massachusetts. Smits produces the glasses from an official looking plastic bag. He claims the victim’s blood is on them. They’re customized with a hearing aid...just like the hearing aid on the glasses that the husband wears now.

Some chaotic bickering between Smits and the prosecutor ensues. He wraps up the trial with something along the lines of “we need rules…but when the rules put an innocent man behind bars, there’s something wrong. There’s something wrong with us if we let them.” He goes on for a few more lines and the next thing we know the defendant is a free man outside the court hugging his wife and kids. No blood test. Nothing from the judge.

I feel like I'm almost shortchanging this because there's so much bad stuff that I've neglected to mention. Almost every scene -- every line -- is downright horrible. Bad dialogue, bad acting, characters that make no sense at all, dozens of inconceivable plot strands jammed into 43 minutes. I mean...Scooby-Doo had tighter plots that were more realistic. It's simply inconceivable to me that a show like this can make it all the way through the production process on to a major network in prime time. People worked hard this thing. Lots of money was poured into it. And even though I'm wildly out of touch with the viewing tastes of the general public, it's very, very difficult to believe that a single person would consider Outlaw a good program.

I'd suggest that all of you take the time to watch it, just as a reminder of how bad something can be.

And just to top it off -- As Smits's team is walking down the steps of courtroom after the appeal, his partner asks, "how does it feel to be an outlaw?"