Factual error: Detective Nina Cassady (who was introduced towards the end of Season 17) frequently wears casual tops that show far too much cleavage for a police officer on duty. If she showed up for duty dressed like that she would be sent home to change.
Factual error: When the cops need to arrest a medical professional, they are frequently shown barging into his/her office, exam room, or even operating room. This would never happen in real life and is strictly forbidden, as it is a gross violation of the patient's privacy, and in the case of the OR, could contaminate the sterile environment, thereby jeopardizing patient safety as well.
The Torrents of Greed (2) - S1-E16
Continuity mistake: The opening title card reads "Three Months Later." Given the dates from the end of Part 1, this episode takes place two months later.
Self Defense - S3-E7
Audio problem: As the Stone and Schiff are watching the news report on the security camera tape the reporter has a voice over going whilst the tape is playing. Towards the end of the tape she is shown on TV and is doing a report on the case. You can see her lips don't come close to synching up with what she is saying. The piece was already airing on TV, so very doubtful the TV station missed the large discrepancy.
Benevolence - S3-E22
Character mistake: When the focus of an investigation of the murder of a deaf woman turns from a deaf activist named Paul Crandall, to Gordon Bryce, the hearing director of an institute for the deaf, Ben Stone instructs Mr. Robinette to "tell Crandall's attorney we're dismissing the charges against his client." However, Crandall's attorney, seen earlier in a scene with Stone and Robinette, was actually a woman, played by Camryn Manheim.
Old Friends - S4-E22
Continuity mistake: Whilst Stone is looking at the pictures of the mobsters (as he is talking to Ann Madsen), he is holding the photos quite close together. The shot changes to a wide shot of the people in the room and the space between the photos is considerably wider than before.
Factual error: Ryan, the laboratory technician, eats his lunch of burger and fries while discussing a murder case with Assistant D.A. Claire Kincaid. Trouble is, they are in his laboratory. No lab technician ever, ever eats or drinks in a laboratory - it is the most basic lab protocol imaginable. He could contaminate his samples in any one of a hundred ways, he inevitably contaminates his gloves or fingers with residue from his meal and he risks poisoning himself with accidental transfer. This is not a character error - lab security is hammered into science students starting with the first day of first year and number one on the list is never, ever eat or drink in your lab.
Humiliation - S6-E7
Other mistake: At the opening, the two undercover vice police are cruising down the street when the passenger cop looks to the side and says, "What the hell! Stop! Go back!" He saw something odd in the alley. When he says, "What the hell!" you can see through his window that the police car is about dead center of the building. His view of the alley where the victim was found would have been obstructed from view. They didn't move backwards, so it wasn't the alley they passed. The cop was looking into the alley they were approaching.
Character mistake: McCoy asks his witness, an expert geneticist, what the odds are that a DNA sample presented in evidence does not match that of the defendant. He answers "About one in two hundred." That is idiotic. If the DNA samples are identical the chances that the the sample presented in evidence does not come from the defendant is about one in two billion, not one in two hundred! A bright high school senior would know that, never mind an expert geneticist.
Suggested correction: If the odds are 1 in 200, that means the accuracy of the DNA is 99.5%. If the odds are 1 in 2 billion, that means the accuracy of the DNA is 99.9999999995%, which simply isn't true.
In fact as any geneticist (i.e, anyone like me) will tell you the chances of two identical DNA "fingerprints" coming from two different and unrelated individuals are around one in two thousand million. Two billion. In fact the odds are much higher than that but we scientists don't like to make claims that sound unlikely or fantastic. The accuracy of DNA fingerprinting is, as you point out, 99.9999999995%. You correction is wrong and the posting is correct.
Except that's not what happened in the scene or what happens in real life. You simply don't understand what you're arguing. You're not a geneticist.
Other mistake: In the opening scene, something catches the husband's eye through a window. He asks his wife to take a look and she gets scared. There is a dead body. When Lenny and Curtis arrive, and are lead back to the body, you can see the view from the street is obstructed. There is a display case, a pedestal, a vase and finally a wall. The head of the body wouldn't have been visible from the street and there was no other disturbance to catch someones attention: The husband and wife couldn't have seen anything.
Blood Money - S10-E8
Visible crew/equipment: During the court case when Hamilton Stewart is taking the stand and answering to McCoy you can see the white screen in the reflection of his glasses very clearly.
Blood Money - S10-E8
Character mistake: The coroner claims Reagan was taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital after the assassination attempt. He was taken to George Washington Hospital.
Visible crew/equipment: After Dr. Murphy walks back in the operating room, there is a man with a boom microphone headset and paper against the right wall. (00:01:40)
Factual error: While discussing the death of a car accident victim with detectives, the pathologist Dr Elizabeth Rodgers takes out a french fry, seasons it with mayonnaise and eats it. She is in the morgue, wearing bloodstained scrubs. Nobody ever eats or drinks in a morgue. This is not a character error; eating and drinking in a sterile laboratory environment is absolutely forbidden and this is taught to medical and science students from day one of their degree courses. In fact she would not even have food in there in the first place.
Plot hole: They speak of sending a high school shooter to state prison. But if he's under 18 surely he'd have to be held in a juvenile facility until he's old enough.
Suggested correction: This is incorrect for the time period. Until recently, 16 and 17 year olds who were charged as adults could get sent to State prison with adults. 2015 is when New York State decides to house 16 and 17 years olds in State prison in separate facilities.
Plot hole: At the end of the episode McCoy and his team tape a conversation between Melissa Corbin and her mother Lorraine in order to record her admitting to murdering Alan, her first husband. Trouble is, she says nothing incriminating. The closest they get is Lorraine asking her why she killed Alan, and she replies "You didn't have to sleep with him." That means nothing, and in fact Lorraine says absolutely nothing of any legal significance during the entire conversation.
Character mistake: In the scene where Serena Southerlyn is speaking to a fingerprint expert, he tells her that he found seven false positives out of the 20 prints tested. Serena replies, "That's almost a third." It's not almost 1/3; it's more than 1/3.
The Collar - S12-E11
Visible crew/equipment: While the DAs are talking about their options in the case, after they first talk to the Priest and he refuses to testify, there is a few close ups of Nora's face. In most of these close ups the reflection of set lights are visible in her glasses.
Factual error: When Green is going over the victims' phone records, he mentions a call to the 508 area code, which they said would have been a call to his parents. The victim's parents lived in Amherst Massachusetts, which is the 413 area code.
Plot hole: During the beginning moments when the couple go to the top floor, as they are going to the roof they discover a lot of smoke on the penthouse floor which leads them to seeing the charred corpse in the hallway. The only problem is that with the smouldering body wouldn't it have set off the smoke alarm or fire alarm? The building is a very posh apartment block and they are on the penthouse floor making the likelihood something as basic as a fire alarm would be triggered. The killing was more in the heat of the moment and most likely the killer burned the body then and there making the probability of a lot of fire on the floor very high. Even if the woman had been burnt somewhere else and brought back to the floor there is no way the smoke around wouldn't at least have set off the fire alarm or sprinklers.
