Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK: Blind Faith - Part 4

FDK goes here.

I won't ask about anything specific, although as always, there are one or two things I'm particularly anxious to hear your thoughts on. Mostly, they're things that don't sit quite right with me. I'm curious to see if anyone else will pick up on them.

Fire away!

Yep, the changed definitely worked. Great job.

Too short! I really am anxious to see what happens next. This part provided more questions than answers. Who is the mystery man on the phone? What will happen to Lois? Will Superman really let the world know he's blind? Most importantly, what is going to happen when Lois and Clark next meet? (I have to admit, that's the question I'm most interested in seeing answered! )

I'm liking this story!

Yeah, what Vikki said.

Wow, Lois definitely has herself in a pickle, doesn't she? And I have no idea how Clark is going to get to the police station by himself, let alone talk to the police without his secret getting out. Especially since -- maybe? -- the police seem to be taking their orders from someone else? Not sure who the mysterious conversation was with but I'm sure we'll find out soon. Things are getting more and more complicated for our heroes!

You asked for things that didn't quite sit right, though, and I had two that jumped out at me:

1) Did I read it correctly, that Lois has her hands cuffed behind her back for hours, even while they are questioning her inside the interrogation room? That wouldn't happen in the US, at least not with this kind of crime and this kind of suspect. I can see them putting the cuffs on her during the ride to the station, as they did in the previous part, but they wouldn't keep them on her while questioning her inside.

2) Lois is a complete idiot for not calling a lawyer after she's been arrested. It's one thing not to bring in a lawyer if you're just being questioned -- it's easy to go with the "I'm innocent and all I have to do is tell the truth and it will be fine" mindset -- but if she's actually been arrested, then this isn't them just fishing for information anymore. This is serious business, and she should know better than to assume that the truth -- especially the limited truth that she's able to tell -- will be enough. That said, I know this plot device is somewhat integral to your scene, and I do like the conversations Lois has with the detectives when they are implying Superman is an accessory, especially when she points out all the holes in their theories. I just don't think, procedurally speaking, they would arrest her without questioning her first. An actual arrest is supposed to come at the end of an investigation, not at the beginning of it.

Hope that helps. Looking forward to part 5.

Another excellent part.

Lois, Lois, Lois! Don't you know that being innocent has nothing to do with it? Big mistake in not calling your lawyer. Your counsel could maybe get you out on bail (although it sounds like the fix is in and Lois is being railroaded toward a murder confession) and would certainly tell you to shut up.

(Of course we need Lois's and the officers's statements to keep the story going....how else to do the exposition?)

Clark is in a dilemma. Why doesn't he think about getting Lois a lawyer? (He probably just doesn't think that way - he just flies in, stops the bad guys, and flies out.) But he should think that way - if Superman is making citizen's arrests all the time, isn't he being called in to court to testify on a regular basis? So he should know about lawyers, etc.

And why am I worrying about lawyers and habeas corpus so much? It's definitely not germane to the story!

OK....back to feedback that might actually be helpful. I found the last few paragraphs, when Lois is alone in her cell, contemplating the CK=S revelation, to be particularly poignant. Especially the part about him not trusting her and how she felt about that.

I like how Jonathan is the voice of caution, and Martha is the voice of doing-what-needs-to-be-done. And I'm still wondering how Clark and Lois are going to get out of their respective pickles!

Keep it coming! Laura

Cute. Unless you had another reason for Lois not calling a lawyer, I suggest when you have her not calling a lawyer because He would want details she can't share with him. I.e. Superman being Blind and Clark being Superman.

So where are Mayson Drake and Inspector Henderson while these yahoos are grilling Lois? So who is leaning on these cops?

Looking forward to more.

Thanks for the continued support, HappyGirl! . I'm glad you think it works better this way .

Vicki, all I can say is: stay tuned . Your questions will be answered in time. Delighted to see that you're hooked, though .

QueenOfTheCapes, ditto . I hereby promise you that I will stop pouring over chapter five tomorrow morning at the latest, and send it off to my BR no matter what shape it is in at that point :p . Depending on Happy's schedule, then, it should be up at some point next week .

KathyB, yeah, it's a pickle, but no conflict, no story, right? . Thank you for telling me what seemed odd to you. The second one is actually something I've been aware of all along, but the scene just wouldn't work with a lawyer in it. The bit about the hand cuffs... I guess I'll have to change that if I don't want these police officers to come across as barbarians, huh?

IolantheAlias, yeah, I'll have to do something about the 'not calling a lawyer' bit. I'm very happy you liked the last couple of paragraphs, though, because those were actually one of the things I was most worried about. They were much worse before Happy got to see them, though, so I guess I should hand the woman another gold star .

laurach, I will. I'm glad you're reading and enjoying .

And Framework4, that's actually a really sensible suggestion. We know, after all, that Lois and Clark have a history of not trusting lawyers . Thank you for your contribution, that earns you a gold star, too!

I was torn between the verbal battle Lois fought and the question, just with just how much Miranda violation the police could get away with. If Ferreira is not actually dirty, he is probably on the fast lane out of the job.

Looking forward to seeing where you're taking this.

Michael

Michael,

As I understand it, there's no actual violation of MIRANDA rights when the suspect has been informed of her rights (the right to remain silent, the right to have an attorney present), but chooses to talk anyway, without the lawyer present.

It's a stupid move to waive MIRANDA rights, but stupidity on the part of the suspect doesn't necessarily make the involved police officers dirty or incompetent.

Lois is just being Lois, here: she's stubborn and independent (as in: I'm perfectly capable of getting out of this jam on my own, thank you very much!'), and she has a tendency to jump into things first, and worry about the consequences later (at which point, she usually starts yelling for Superman).

Yes, it's a bad move. But isn't that true about a lot of the things we've seen Lois do on the show?

Sooner or later, she'll come to her senses and do the rational thing. Right now, though, she's just trying to protect a secret, and going about that in 'Mad Dog Lane on steroids' mode.

I agree. Handcuffs would not be left on in the police station, so it will make your story more realistic to change that part.

The no-lawyer move was undoubtably a stupid one on Lois's part, but completely within the realm of reality. Many people falsely believe that if they are innocent they do not need a lawyer. In fact, some think that calling for a lawyer will be seen by the police as equivalent to a confession of guilt, while not calling for one will help convince the police of one's innocence. Besides, it is totally in character for Lois to believe she can handle this on her own.

Huh, here I was, thinking that Miranda applies to everything regarding the treatment of an arrested person. I was thinking of the handcuffs, the missing opportunity to visit the bathroom, etc. The only thing missing was Lois 'tripping' But then, the first time I heard of Miranda was in Red Heat, where the American cop explained to the Russian cop why hitting the criminal was a bad thing to do

Michael

I read an interesting article about the Miranda case and Miranda rights once (wish I could remember everything), but the gist of it was:

1) The Supreme Court took on the case (was it Miranda vs. Arizona?) because there was much confusion about what legally could be done to elicit confessions from crime suspects, and whether or not these confessions were legally admissible as evidence.

2) As a previous poster mentioned, "you have the right to remain silent" and the arresting officers must tell you that. But if you choose not to remain silent, (as the next part of the speech goes) "anything you say can/may be used against you in a court of law." (forgot the exact wording.) So in general, if you're faced with being arrested for a felony, SHUT UP. Let your lawyer do the talking.

Good job with the fic, explaining that Lois doesn't want her lawyer there because of the Superman secret. Very plausible. Although not so good for Lois. But, as previous posters have also mentioned, that's very in-character for Lois.

The tale of the Miranda rights can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning
I used the common wording when Clark arrested Toni Taylor in "All the Daytime and the Nighttime" here on the boards.
- exit shameless plug-
The history of the Miranda process is interesting.

Artemis

very nice job! I enjoyed this version of one of my all time fave eps!

It's been about a week now. I'm just popping in to let you know I'm still here, anxious to read the next installment!

This story is fabulous!!! I'm loving it, although since I came in on part 3, quickly looked for part 4, and would love to see part 5 soon (subtle), I have to go back and read 1 and 2 to see how it all began (even though of course I know how the episode went).

All the characters are so clearly written and realized, and everything is very vivid. I can see Lois glaring at the patronizing detectives who think they can actually intimidate Mad Dog Lane, smell the horrible mattress in her cell, see Clark pacing while Jonathan worries and Martha is the voice of reason - excellent!

More please.

Vicki

Hey, Penny

If you sent me part 5, I didn't get it. Try again. If you're still tortuously rewriting it, Stop! Just send me what you've got and we'll hammer it out. If RL is getting in the way, we'll all take a deep breath and chill until it calms down.

Happy

Hey guys,

Yes, I should have posted part 5 by now. I promised I would.

I haven't, because I just found a new job (yay!) that I unfortunately landed only on the provision of working about eight hours a week more than I did at my last job, putting me at about thirty hours a week now. That's great money-wise, and since it's much closer to home and school, I'll save a significant amount of time on the commute, but it will still take some getting used to in terms of planning. School has started up again, too (yay!), and I find myself suddenly involved in several different group projects that aren't necessarily any more complicated than anything else I've ever done, but you wouldn't believe that if you looked only at the raw amount of time we spend just trying to all agree on the basics (meh). Plus, for the time being I'm still recovering from an operation to my ankle, and a total hip replacement a little earlier this year, which means I'm on the hook for physio three times a week until at least the end of next month. Meh squared.

I'll have to re-schedule my daily writing time to fit around these things, and I haven't yet found the perfect moment for it. I figure an hour late at night will be it for the foreseeable future, but this week hasn't been kind to me in that regard. I share a house with six brand-new first-year students, and since I'm older and (presumably) wiser (but mostly just because I'm the only one around who's lived here before ), the landlady figured I'd make the perfect go-to person for everyone and their dog (which I have to admit makes sense, given the circumstances). So I've been spending my evenings of late meeting with my housemates to discuss the ins and outs of living together in this place, making and putting up a plethora of signs that remind people of the obvious but are required by the landlady, hunting down the building owner so that he'd finally replace the broken freezer and have the cold-water-only shower fixed, and negotiating between the neighbor with the little kids and the beer-loving eighteen-year-olds around here who 'just want to have some fun'. Just so you know: the legal drinking age where I live is sixteen, but the fact that it's legal doesn't necessarily mean it's also going to be sensible.

Hm. For clarity's sake, I'll add that I am by no means complaining here. I love my life the way it is right now. It's just that my more or less comfortable routine has been shook up a bit, and it will take me some time to get into the swing of things again where my writing is concerned.

Just know that I'm still committed to this story, and once I do carve out some dedicated writing time in my new schedule, I should be able to post at least one chapter a week, if not two.

- Ped