Posted on 09/04/2017 9:43:47 AM PDT by Ennis85
A new Netflix documentary shows the incredible story about how an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" was used to stop a man from being put to death for a crime he didn’t commit.
"Long Shot" tells the story of Juan Catalan, arrested for the murder of a 16-year-old girl in 2003.
NME reports that he had long maintained his innocence by saying he was at a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game on the night of the crime. Catalan mentioned that it looked like somebody was filming something at the game, but he wasn’t sure what.
The filming was for the show "Curb Your Enthusiasm," a 2004 episode in which Larry David takes a prostitute out to a ball game. Raw tapes of the episode revealed footage proving the suspect was in the very spot he said he was.
“We were in for an enormous fight,” Catalan’s lawyer says in the trailer for the documentary. “The prosecutor assigned to the case had never lost. She liked to pick off people with the death penalty.”
Larry David is also featured in the documentary, according to AV Club.
Long Shot will premiere on Netflix on September 30.
(Excerpt) Read more at oxygen.com ...
Every death penalty case should be given the most extreme scrutiny. And every death penalty conviction should be followed by an execution within 30 days.
Off the topic, was there an actor from the series “Curb Your Enthusiasm” who was in his early 90’s when he had passed?
It appears that the initial search was warranted as Mr.Catalan was the brother of a co-defendant in a gang murder case and he was considered a good suspect for the murder of a 16yo girl who testified in that case. The weakness was that he had ticket stubs for attending the baseball game with his daughter and had offered to take a lie-detector test. Obviously, anyone who goes to a baseball game knows that there is very little chance of 'proving' attendance beyond having the ticket stubs - the Godfather Movies alone show how plausible deniability works here.
I was just thinking...it seems from the article that the prosecutor put up a fight even after seeing the film that proved the man innocent.
Knowing he was innocent, she tried hard to have him executed rather than lose the case.
His life was worth less to her than her winning streak.
I wouldn’t want to rush to execute anyone that she had prosecuted.
Shelly Berman, a comic from the 50s and 60s played Larry David’s father. He just died a few days ago at 91.
I’m wondering if the filming evidence would still be admissible in court because of today’s digital technology?
Shelly Berman, 92. Passed last week.
He was great in that role. Remember the episode where Larry’s mother died and he went to see them because he hadn’t been in touch with them in several weeks as he had been out of town? Shelly Berman was hilarious in that scene.
Not necessarily, prosecutors can be quite corrupt and dishonest. Personally, I would favor the British system. There is only one legal office for the prosecution of criminal cases, the lawyers are randomly assigned to defense or prosecution, and (as I remember) the winning lawyer gets the bonus. I think this is the best way to keep things honest.
“The prosecutor assigned to the case had never lost. She liked to pick off people with the death penalty.”
Does this prosecutor have a name? Just curious.
The profession (lawyer) attracts a lot of jackholes with huge egos (as well as many good people with egos of varying sizes), unfortunately some of them are prosecutors too. Anyone more interested in winning than justice has no place having that kind of power.
“Anyone more interested in winning than justice has no place having that kind of power.”
True, but today it seems that people who should never be in charge of anything are in charge of everything.
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