CSI Miami, Lawful Good, and Paladins... ?

[Bardsandsages]

A LG character certainly can. First of all, Lawful does not mean "law-abiding." Second, "few people are completely consistent. A lawful good character may have a greedy streak that occasionally tempts him to take something or hoard something he has, even if that's not lawful or good behavior." (PHB, p.103)

Paladin questions are to be avoided like the plague, but I will point out that the laws regarding suppression of evidence are just as much laws as are those prohibiting the sale and possession of drugs. If a paladin is required to uphold secular law (and I'm not saying he is), he's duty-bound to uphold the laws requiring suppression of evidence as well as any others.

I have this arguement with people all the time, law doesn't mean legal, it means order. A lawful person believes order is better than chaos. A lawful good person upholds order, but not at the sacrifice of good. A paladin in Thay isn't going to condone slavery just because it is legal there. He is still going to protect a slave being beated by his master if he can. The same can be implied here. The supposed paladin (Horatio) won't let a good man suffer just because the law says his actions are illegal.

 

[Henry]

But this is a perfect time to ask. Last week or the week before on CSI Miami, they had this cut scene you could view by going to their website. Did anybody check that out and if so, what was the "secret"? I'm thinking it was the pot and cancer from the first post, but I'd like to know for sure.

It was a glorified and thinly-whitewashed advertisement for the new line of Hummers. The big secret is that
[sblock] The Department has a mole that is speaking badly to the TV media about the dept. and giving all kinds of details. Erica the reporter tells Wolf this before driving off in her candy-apple red hummer that Wolf tells her "looks so good." [/sblock]

 

[Henry]

My severe distaste for Horatio Caine aside, I could see a paladin doing similarly. I'm of the "law means order" camp myself, and a Paladin in a lawful Evil country is not going to stand idly by if he sees an injustice being protected by laws. He may not do something right then, but he assuredly will act in an effective way that doesn't involve sinking to the level of the injustice (no cold-blooded killing, etc.)

 

[Zelgar]

I think an important issue in this case is how Horatio was able to get the case closed/thrown out for Eric. In order to IA to require a drug test, they must have had evidence/testimony from a reliable source. Unfortunately for IA, the source of the information was a drug dealer. The other members of the CSI team were forced to talk with IA, and the only "evidence" of drug use was some wrapping papers.

Since IA did not have the proper (i.e., lawful) requirements to take a drug test, it is invalid. Additionally, the amount of THP? that was found was insufficient to indicate if Eric was taking the drug. Because of these items, the prosecutor did not want to take the case to court and the matter was dropped.

Zelgar