Episodic Hallucinations

An appeals court has overturned the 2002 conviction of Andrea Yates for drowning her children, citing false testimony by a prosecution witness. During the trial, psychiatrist Park Dietz described an episode of Law and Order, which he said Yates regularly watched, in which a woman successfully pleads not guilty by reason of insanity after drowning her children in a bathtub. The prosecution suggested that Yates, who likewise offered an insanity defense, had modeled her crime after the TV show. But it turns out this particular episode of Law and Order existed only in Dietz's mind.

It's hard to believe that Dietz, who served as a consultant for the show, could have mistakenly remembered an episode that was never produced. But it's also hard to believe that he thought he could get away with deliberately inventing an episode, given how easy it would be to check. It reminds me of that time on Boston Legal when the prosecutor argued that a killer imitated an episode of a popular crime drama, but then it turned out there was no such episode.