That's not how it works on the television...

I heard the other day that a lot of juries were being disappointed in the quality of evidence that was being presented at trials. The blame for that disappointment has been placed on television shows that tend to exaggerate the capabilities of police investigators.

I understand how that could happen. The people on NCIS and CSI Miami can lift fingerprints off of a piece of toast and get a 95 year-old man to confess to rape.

I guess I might be guilty of over-expectation myself now and then.

The trailer where we store our tools when we are working on a job was broken into recently. Whoever decided to help themselves to our tools dropped a pair of bolt cutters beside the trailer. When I called to report the theft to our local sheriff's department, I thought that might be useful somewhere along the line.

I didn't expect that the police would catch the thief, or recover the stolen items, but I did need a police report for my insurance company. I did expect that someone from the department might want to look at the trailer and the bolt cutters.

When the officer showed up at the crime scene the first time, he told us he couldn't walk over to the trailer because he didn't want to get in the mud. I wasn't expecting that. On his second visit he asked me to bring the bolt cutters over to him. I wasn't expecting that either.

I've got to stop watching so much television.