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Comedy/Parody To Producers and Production Companies:
This is a pseudo-legal context with police prosecution / persecution, criminal trial and sardonic comment on right-wing politics, religion and cultural control. The situation surrounds a pair of very marginal, but socially responsible attorneys. Because they couldn't make it in private practice, they became the public defenders for a bigoted, right-wing county. Each hour episode is half setup/background and half bungled trial. The cases are witch-hunts. No crime was actually committed, or a great deal is made of a trivial matter, or the offenses are prompted by religious or politically bigotry against local dogmas such as flag burning, failure to salute the flag, membership in subversive organizations (ACLU, Democratic Party), adultery, suspicion of being a "terrorist" (Jew), failure to attend church, teaching evolution or sex education, unlicensed use of birth control, failure of gays and lesbians to register and display badge, similar sexual offenses (lots of obsession with sex), false rape, false child molestation, murder where there's no body because the supposed victim simply moved away, runaway pretty white girl drunks and so forth. The series is set in Adolf, the seat of Scopes County, Kansas. The state name need not be used, but the Kansas state flag is displayed. The hamlet is located amid huge corporate farms owned by Saudi Arabia and the Shrub (Bush) family through "Silverado Food Factories and Oil, Inc." The farms are tended by mammoth machines, automation (chickens strangled automatically on a timer by a robot), and robotic devices. The only humans allowed are illegal Hispanic and Oriental aliens who are systematically cheated, persecuted and exploited like slaves. The town is very small, population 5000. It's badly dilapidated. There are no small businesses except bars, doctors advertising drugs, a bordello called "Pat Robertson's Place," and fast-food drive-ins. Citizens are required to eat at a drive-in once a day. The kiddies window features added grease and slat. The bars admit Republican drunks who watch auto racing. Store fronts in the town are abandoned. The village is filthy and un-cared-for. Dogs and chickens roam the mostly deserted streets. TV cameras and cops are everywhere. Suspicious persons (anybody not white and rich) are stopped and searched. Women are strip searched. The town is extremely Republican and conservative, bigoted, hypocritical, materialistic, control freaks. It has laws which micromanage every aspect of life. There are frequent parades glorifying war and supporting troops killing foreigners, but nobody enlists in the military - pure hypocrisy. Gays and lesbians are required to register and live in the "Triangle Ward." If they spread their dreadful perversion outside the ward, they are severely beaten. The town is extremely Christian in the worst sense. The pastor of the town's only licensed church, Santorum Mather, is also the town's mayor. He lives outside the town in an exclusive gated and guarded community, "Goldwater Village." He keeps his mistress, a young Hispanic girl and her six children in a shanty hidden on one of the corporate farms, "Silverado Corn 871-A." The town has no public schools only a private academy for the rich living in the gated community, "The Hubris Academy." Ordinary children are bused 77 miles to a public school in Mongrel County. Children are illegal, but grudgingly tolerated. They are taxed. Poor children must wear their license on their shirts. Poor girls are examined for virginity twice a year on "Sinners' Days." Almost everybody in the town is employed at the huge nearby prison for teenagers, "Acne Center for Bad Boys," the county's only tourist attraction. Most others are employed by the 65 member police force and homeland security force. Just outside of town is "Must-Buy-Mart," (Wal-Mart-like store) which is bigger than the town itself. It sells everything such as pony parts, luminescent bras, beer by the gallon from a pump outside. A whole department is dedicated to American flags. Another is for books with bold religious titles, but nothing printed on the pages. One section is for organ exchange. Guns are the biggest sellers. The county has an ordinance that everyone 12 years old and older must own at least one gun. Male citizens are expected to shoot at least one bad guy per year. They may go on vigilante safaris to big cities. Women are allowed to shoot their husbands if they feel neglected, or to shoot any man who might rape them. Any lesbian approaching a decent woman is shot on sight. The town has a radio station, "WGOP." It's owned by the Republican party in partnership with the "American Way Church Against Jews and Perverts." The radio station plays religious programs and patriotic music in the background of scenes. It advertises Klan meetings, Republican and church affairs and government propaganda. It openly advocates war, atomic weapons, imprisonment of the poor, immigrants and of the peculiar. It supports policies to stop taxing the wealthy and to abolish taxes on gas-guzzling cars. It preaches against free speech, abortion and all things gay. The principal characters are two well-meaning, but barely competent lawyers. Their job is to defend the many ordinary and mostly poor persons accused of crimes in the county. They occupy a tiny one-room office in the basement of the courthouse. Their toilet is in the corner of the office. Cold War era civil defense gear is also stored in the room. A Geiger counter is the doorstop. The public defenders office only exists because it's required by a bleeding-heart liberal state law. It has a miniscule budget. The lawyers are so underpaid that their wives support them by working at Must-Buy-Mart (Wal-Mart). The lawyers must babysit their children at work. The public defenders, Perry Smith and Mason Jones, are muddled and disorganized, struggling against their own limitations and impossible cases. They always are hopeful and have a positive perspective. They are the only openly Democratic persons in the county. Fortunately, the ordinance against being a Democrat isn't usually enforced against them, although they were once fined for displaying a picture of John Dean. Otherwise, the party and all liberals are labeled terrorist and subversive organizations and are illegal. Of Course, Jews, Muslims and Catholics are also terrorists. Blacks must be licensed in order to pass through the town. The public defenders try to represent the dozens of persons charged with imaginary, but sometimes real offenses. They almost always lose. Like the real legal system, the system in Scopes County is utterly unfair and bigoted. The poor are always regarded as guilty. Persons must prove their innocence. The charges are usually for crimes that weren't actually committed. The defendants are almost always poor. Afro-Americans are brought in off the highway to be tried since they aren't legal in the town. Travelers of questionable ethnic or religious backgrounds are charged. Most men in the town are charged with rape and/or child molesting at one time or another. The charges are often based on an angry woman's snit or on rumors spread by neighbors or the Committee of Public Safety. Drug charges are only brought against those whose dope is not obtained through an expensive doctor. Drunkenness is illegal for those with annual incomes of less that $60,000. Abortions are illegal for women under 21, for non-whites, for unmarried women and for those without $5000 in the bank. As with all conservative places, Scopes County follows the "Edwin Meese Principle:" if the cops said you did it, you did it! Trials are a bleeding heart liberal luxury. The people are represented by a Nancy Grace type extremist fanatic, "Grace Pancy." She's a hysteric. She sees crimes, especially sexual crimes everyplace. All men, but seldom women, are guilty simply by the fact that they're alive. She especially likes to prosecute the mentally retarded and the mentally ill who can't defend themselves well against her wild accusations. Even where there's no crime, she wants prosecution. She has no interest in evidence or facts. She goes on emotions, passion and her feeling. She prosecutes on the basis that one is guilty until proven innocent. Even where a person is found not guilty or it's proven that there was no crime, she insists that he's guilty. In all ways she's fanatic and rabid. Sex crimes and girls are what interest her the most. The prosecutor brings charges based on little or no evidence, just if she doesn't like the guy and she doesn't like any guys. Her cases are based on rumors and or the accusations of angry children, wives, wealthy people or pure fabrication. She has the police plant evidence, tell lies and produce false laboratory reports. The county really has no crime lab. She has men tortured into false confessions or simply pretends that they confessed. In other words, she's just an extreme example of what goes on with all real prosecutors. The prosecutor has a "Committee of Public Safety" made up of land owners and blue-haired women. They cook up charges where they don't like someone. They also patrol the county border and shoot aliens and strangers who may wonder across the line. They also arrest anyone caught trying to leave the county without a pass and the payment of the exit tax. The prosecutor is a closet lesbian, but she vigorously prosecutes other lesbians pretending that it's a horrific sex crime. Her "friend," Alice B. Tookless, is secretly a Jew and the warden of the local prison for boys. Alice likes to photograph the boys being tortured, especially while they're naked and on a dog leash. She drowns one every now and then. The county has three judges. One is strictly a judge of elections. He's appointed directly by the Republican National Committee. Citizens of Scopes County are encouraged to vote, but only a few ballots are actually counted. Based on that information the Supreme Election Judge declares the Republican the winner. Another of the judges is kept busy handling a steady stream of divorces. The divorce rate is 100% except for one guy who died on his wedding night before his bride could divorce him. If a woman doesn't want to trouble with a divorce she may shoot her husband a few times. The criminal court judge is a nasty, overbearing "Judge Judy" type, Lizzy Robespierre. She's combative, bossy, self-important, rude, emotional, unprofessional, foul-mouthed, abrasive and crooked. For a few dollars a wealthy defendant can get off of anything. She had a standard schedule of "donations." She doesn't allow jury trials except if the defendant pays for the jurors. In fact she becomes very angry if the defendant doesn't simply plead guilty avoiding the work of a trial. The judge doesn't allow blacks or Hispanics in her courtroom except as defendants. She invents the law as she goes along. She especially detests the prosecutor who's younger that she is. The courthouse is a shaby, clapboard building. On the seldom mowed front lawn there's a sprawling permanent, but cheaply made creche. It has badly painted figures. There's also a tall wooden Ten Commandments surrounded by American Flags, many tattered. In addition, there's a heroic statue of George W. Bush holding a six-shooter standing beside an oil derrick. Inside the courthouse there are guards and cameras everywhere even in the jury deliberation room. If things aren't going the way the judge wants, she can call in the jury and get rid of any troublemakers. Everyone is spied upon and watched by the Committee of Public Safety. There's a Bible on every juror's chair and before trials there's a prayer to Jesus. The trials are farces. The audience realizes that the accused is innocent and watches him get railroaded. The defendant is expected to "cooperate." That means he's expected to confess and to give evidence against himself. If he doesn't, the judge and prosecutor want to know why he won't cooperate. The defense is not allowed to call witnesses unless the prosecutor approves of them. During the closing credits, the audience watches the convicted defendant being chained, abused and jailed.
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