"The Aftermath" Evidence
*Trigger warning: the episode discussed involved a serial rapist and mentions the attacks.
The Allure of Criminal Minds
In my first Introduction to Criminal Justice class, the professor started her first lecture by turning to a group of scared freshmen and asking, “Who is majoring in criminal justice so they can join the Behavioral Analysis Unit, or BAU?”
Almost every hand in the room shot up, including mine. We had all watched the amazing BAU cases on the classic TV show Criminal Minds, drawn into each episode as it depicted a violent, brutally creative “unsub” who got caught through the BAU team's genius profiling. From traveling across the US to understanding a criminal’s psychology through crime-scene evidence, the BAU seemed like the dream job.
However, our professor looked across the sea of hands and said, “Well, you better start thinking again because the BAU is just a bunch of old white men and they’re usually wrong.”
32 dreams crushed in one go.
The TV Show in Reality
While I am not one to critique the professor’s words as an expert in her field, my career change doesn't mean I can’t enjoy Criminal Minds anymore. If anything, though, it motivates me to scrutinize it further. While the show doesn't apply the same legal or courtroom elements as similar shows like every variation of Law and Order, it reflects more investigative procedure.
We can use Season 2, Episode 5, “The Aftermath,” as an example. In this episode, the BAU team is called in to Dayton, Ohio, to investigate a series of rapes. Originally, the rapes were occurring on a religious college’s campus, but after a 6-week break, they began again in the surrounding neighborhood. The perpetrator would stalk women and leave threatening voicemails before the attacks. Following the team’s investigation, drawing connections between each new victim showed that all of the women went to the same fertility clinic, where the perpetrator had access to their personal information as an employee of a telemarketing firm that handled the women’s data. To catch him, the BAU team decided to send one of their officers into a home as bait and wait for him to arrive. However, this profiler had a trauma response to being potentially attacked at home due to a prior attack from another episode. This trauma leads to her confronting the subject without cause, and later shooting him.
What Went Right
Beginning with evidence, the show accurately portrayed how logic can be applied to handling evidence. By tracing leads, different responses to questions or documentation can produce secondary evidence. If handled incorrectly or discovered illegally, such as through a warrantless search, the evidence found becomes “fruit of the poisonous tree” and becomes inadmissible in court. The “fruit” refers to secondary evidence that is found following primary evidence that was found illegally, the “tree.” Any evidence stemming from the tree is in turn tainted and can destroy a case.
In this episode, when the team used the profiler as bait for the offender, they stressed that unless he broke into the home, they did not have enough probable cause to arrest him. They would need him to commit an illegal act, such as breaking and entering, before being able to obtain DNA evidence that would connect him to the rapes. This accurately reflects the flow of evidence needed to secure an arrest or gather more information, rather than letting the team swing in and arrest him without cause.
Furthermore, the show largely upheld these evidence values by using an undercover individual and excluding her confrontation with the man. After figuring out the offender’s pattern of going after women who were visiting a fertility clinic and using their intake forms to learn about them, they submitted a false document to lure the offender to the undercover home. While the development of the ruse is left out, the plan accurately shows how to go undercover.
For the show, the undercover was there only to provide an opportunity for the man to offend, not to influence or induce him to commit a crime. This difference matters, as trying to coerce him into committing the crime could hurt a court case and lead to evidence being thrown out. Instead, by only providing an opportunity for an offense, it leaves the onus on the perpetrator to act of his own free will.
Although the unsub never made it to court after an arrest since the undercover individual later shoots him, Criminal Minds did show the correct steps towards making such an arrest. As a delicate case, they emphasized the necessary steps towards finding justice, even when it doesn’t feel right to let such a violent person stay free until cause is found.
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