The opening scene is a well dressed middle aged woman getting into a car, and then an explosion. Next scene, her husband is being told about her death by colleagues. The widowed husband is Joe Flexner who happens to be a D.A. He immediately calls up gangster Walter Whittaker (Robert Alda) and tells him that he accidentally killed his wife, not him, and he will make sure that he pays.
Apparently the titular Judd is a friend of Flexner, because two of Flexner's associate prosecutors come to Judd and tell him how Flexner has rented an isolated office, filled it with police teletypes and is obsessed with "getting" Whittaker for the murder. They ask him to talk to Flexner about his obsession and convince him to turn the investigation over to the state attorney's office. He does so, Flexner refuses.
Now Whittaker is a bad guy and a gangster. No doubt he has had people killed. But did he attempt to have Flexner killed and in the process kill his wife? This is the issue that Flexner turns a blind eye to. And the answer to the question "why the obsession?" is not obvious at first either. The issue is that Flexner no longer loved his wife and had asked for a divorce so he could marry somebody else. She refused. Is he acting out of guilt over really being glad that she is dead and he is free, or is it something more sinister? Something that would lead to an alternate theory of the crime? Watch and find out. But good luck with finding this episode anywhere.
How does this story have a modern twist? It actually addresses the rules of modern discovery in a criminal case. I guess a cheating husband and legal intricacies don't garner much interest 54 years later, because apparently nobody has rated or reviewed this episode until now. However, oddly enough, somebody wrote an article about this very episode over at ABA Journal in September 2020. It is worth a read too.
Apparently the titular Judd is a friend of Flexner, because two of Flexner's associate prosecutors come to Judd and tell him how Flexner has rented an isolated office, filled it with police teletypes and is obsessed with "getting" Whittaker for the murder. They ask him to talk to Flexner about his obsession and convince him to turn the investigation over to the state attorney's office. He does so, Flexner refuses.
Now Whittaker is a bad guy and a gangster. No doubt he has had people killed. But did he attempt to have Flexner killed and in the process kill his wife? This is the issue that Flexner turns a blind eye to. And the answer to the question "why the obsession?" is not obvious at first either. The issue is that Flexner no longer loved his wife and had asked for a divorce so he could marry somebody else. She refused. Is he acting out of guilt over really being glad that she is dead and he is free, or is it something more sinister? Something that would lead to an alternate theory of the crime? Watch and find out. But good luck with finding this episode anywhere.
How does this story have a modern twist? It actually addresses the rules of modern discovery in a criminal case. I guess a cheating husband and legal intricacies don't garner much interest 54 years later, because apparently nobody has rated or reviewed this episode until now. However, oddly enough, somebody wrote an article about this very episode over at ABA Journal in September 2020. It is worth a read too.
