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This week's episode of The Practice revolves around two confessions.

In the first plot line, Rebecca defends Ronnie, a twentysomething accused of vehicular homicide (not to be confused with testicular homicide - which may show up on a future episode). Ronnie allegedly hit a pedestrian in a car that had been loaned to him. Before the pedestrian's spleen bursts, back when the case is a simple traffic accident, Ronnie signs a confession admitting his guilt. When the pedestrian dies, and the Assistant District Attorney indicates she will prosecute Ronnie for manslaughter, Ronnie reveals to Rebecca that his confession was bogus.

It seems Teddy Barrington, the wealthy owner and actual driver of the car, has two previous DWI (driving while intoxicated) convictions. In the world of "three strikes you're out," Barrington simply hires a pinch hitter. He pays Ronnie $30,000, with the promise of more, for his false confession.

Rebecca's job is to somehow undo the signed confession. This may not be as hard as it sounds since Ronnie happens to have proof of the bribe - the $30,000 -- sitting in his closet at home. It gets a little harder when Ronnie "decides" to re-affirm his confession. (There's no real reason to put quotes around the word decides there, but then again, there's no reason not to.) Now Rebecca has to fight the Assistant District Attorney, Judge Swackheim (Paul Dooley), and her own client.

Rebecca's defense of Ronnie at trial is a little hard to swallow. The American court system is supposed to be an evidentiary brawl. Two adversaries -- the state and the defendant -- are pitted against one another. Each presents its case -- its own version of the truth -- before a jury, and the jury is asked to choose between them in order to come to some version of the "truth."

Where the defendant confesses, it ordinarily takes most of the conflict out of the trial. The defendant's attorney - an agent of the defendant and not some free-wheeling do-gooder roaming the land doing justice - must act pursuant to her client's instructions, if that client is competent. In the real world, as Rebecca herself notes, she would have been fired in an instant. In addition, the evidence on which Rebecca relies are statements Ronnie made to her, and the $30,000 she finds in her own search of his apartment. Yet she never takes the stand. There are other problems most lawyers would note, like the fact that no testimony is offered from Barrington. The prosecutor would not likely have by-passed an opportunity to fry a big fish like Barrington instead of going after a small fry like Ronnie, and a contract to pay Ronnie any money for false testimony is unenforceable and illegal, etc., etc.

Nevertheless, the issue the show raises is real. It does happen that defendants who are innocent plead guilty and confess. And lawyers who believe their clients are innocent, allow them to plead guilty. I recall one case in which a poor schmuck (I'll call him the "schmuck") had been given a free trip to a Carribean island by his "friend." The friend told him he had been hired to produce a commercial and needed some additional people to carry around equipment, and act as grips or gaffers or something like that. The schmuck went down to the island, had a great time, and spent one half of one day carrying around some television equipment.

At the airport, waiting for the return flight, the "friend" told the schmuck that his brother ran a restaurant in Boston and stocked the wine cellar with wine from this particular island. Customs restrictions prevented the "friend" from carrying back more than three bottles himself. So would the schmuck mind carrying back two bottles himself and declaring them at customs? Of course, he said. He would be happy to do so.

At customs, the schmuck swore on a stack of Bibles that the two bottles of wine he was carrying were his and belonged to no one else. Turned out there was a terrific amount of an illegal substance dissolved in the wine. Go figure.

Fast forward a few months.

The United States Attorney's office was convinced the schmuck was as guilty as they come and his story of being taken in by his "friend" was unbelievable. The "friend"-- also being prosecuted - told the United States Attorney's office that the schmuck was a schmuck. Still, they pursued him. He choice was to go to trial and risk some serious time, or plead guilty to a charge of distribution and have a long period of probation.

He chose the deal.

At the hearing before the United States District Court, the schmuck was going to be required to admit that he knew all along that he was involved in a drug smuggling operation. Of course, any such statement would be a lie - but he had to lie about this to escape a worser fate. When the time came, he couldn't lie. He broke down on the stand crying. Happily for him, the Judge saw what was going on and leaned on the United States Attorney's office, which finally dismissed the charges.

Back to The Practice. Some other things I noted about this episode: While there are still too many ex parte contacts between lawyers and judges, the exchange between Judge Swackheim and Rebecca was priceless. It would never happen in real life - but then, again, most of what appears on TV would never happen in real life.

In the second plot line involving a confession, it turns out George Vogelman is "weird" after all and not just plain boring. Dressed as a nun, he confesses to Ellenor, then tries to stab her. (It reminded me of that quote that "a true friend stabs you in the front," or something like that).

Ellenor is a lawyer's lawyer. As Vogelman is getting ready to hack her into teeny tiny pieces, Ellenor is explaining to him that he's clearly insane and she could certainly get him off for the crimes he's committed up til now. This only encourages him.

Finally, why does Vogelman dress up as a nun? Why did he leave a photograph of an article from the Boston Herald and not the Globe in the law offices? And what about that grape jelly? ( See episode one .)

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