Dallas lawyers' screaming match on national TV

If there’s one thing A&E does better than any television network, it’s reality shows. And of those shows, “The First 48” -- which follows various homicide detectives, documentary style, as they try to solve a murder within two days -- is king. The show usually ends just as the cops have apprehended the suspected bad guy. But last night the network premiered a show called “After the First 48,” which documents what happens after the cuffs get slapped on the wrists: the prosecution. The show featured a Texas capital murder case. The highlight of this episode was a spectacular shouting match between Dallas County Assistant District Attorney Marc Moffitt and Edwin V. King, a Dallas criminal defense attorney. After Tracy Holmes, judge of the 363rd District Court, asked Moffitt why one of his crucial witnesses was absent from the courtroom, he told her: “Well, that’s because some lawyer told them they didn’t have to come.” King, thinking Moffitt was insinuating that Moffitt meant King, got in Moffitt’s face and screamed, “That’s a [BLEEP] lie!” To which Moffitt yelled: “I didn’t say it was you!” In an interview with the A&E crew after the trial, King, ever the gentleman, apologized for his outburst. “I was probably out of line,” King says. “I shouldn’t have acted the way I did. It was inappropriate for me to respond the way I did, and I apologized to the judge. But hey, that’s just life in the trial.” And that brand of drama is what’s going to keep A&E camera crews coming back to Dallas.
-- John Council