TVSquad

(S03E11) Detective Carlton Lassiter accused of murder? Say it ain't so!

Okay, it ain't so. How could it be? This is Lassie we're talking about here; not some detective like Vic Mackey! If there ever was a straight (some say too straight) shooting detective it's Carlton Lassiter. He'll do everything legally in his power to catch his man or woman or greasy-fingered monkey and put them away for a long time. And, if he exhausts all of the legal options, that's when he goes to Shawn Spencer and Gus for help.

And, that's what he ended up doing in this episode of Psych. So, let's all turn the page after the tone to see what happened to our favorite detective (well, favorite next to Jules, of course).

Law and Order creator Dick Wolf and NBC Universal have snatched up the rights to the book The Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia. The book tells the true story of two New York City copes, Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito, who secretly worked as murderers for the mafia. The book was written by William Oldham and Guy Lawson. Oldham worked for the NYPD alongside Caracappa, but didn't find out about his partners secret life until later. He launched an investigation, despite very little help from the NYPD, and both Caracappa and Eppolito were eventually arrested.

The book will be developed into a television project produced by Wolf and Tom Thayer, though whether it will be another Law and Order series or something else entirely isn't known just yet, according to Variety. Meanwhile, several movie deals are also being worked out to bring the story to the bigscreen.

FOX has set up a special MySpace page for the drama Bones, and it's just one of the special promotional ideas the network has for a plotline on the show.

The page lists profiles for 18 characters on the show (regular characters and guest stars), blogs from the characters, videos, and other clues to the mystery of who will be killed (and who the killer is) on the May 9 episode of the show. Fans will actually be able to visit the sites, watch the videos, and read the blogs after every episode to collect clues to see if they can guess the identity of the murder victim and the murderer.

I feel bad about not watching the show anymore. I watched for most of the first season and it was actually pretty good. With this new promotion and the show's growing popularity, I just might try to get back into the show again and see how it is.

In 1997, Julie Rea Harper was convicted of killing her son, Joel. In 2002, Rea Harper was interviewed on 20/20, still claiming she was innocent. After the report was aired, convicted murderer and death row inmate Tommy Lynn Sells confessed to crime writer Diane Fanning that he was the one who killed Rea Harper's son.

The death penalty, not unlike abortion rights, is a polarizing topic, and advocates on both sides of the death penalty debate have strong feelings about a state's right to end the life of a human being.

In "Race to Execution," which airs on PBS' Independent Lens on March 27 at 10:00 p.m., the question as to whether race plays a role in death penalty convictions is made the center focus. One story deals with Madison Hobley, a Chicago man sentenced to death for allegedly setting a fire that killed seven people, including his wife and young child. The other story deals with Robert Tarver, accused of shooting a white general store owner in Alabama. In the end, one man is executed and the other is exonerated.

The documentary takes the stance that a person's race, and the overall race of the jury, does play a significant role in whether or not a person is sentenced to death. However, the two people behind the film, Rachel Lyon and Jim Lopes, are on both sides of the debate (Lopes supports the death penalty and Lyon does not). No single work can serve as the ultimate Truth on the death penalty, but "Race to Execution" does offer one angle that's worth considering for anyone interested in educating themselves about this issue, no matter what their belief happens to be.