Garrett Coleman '25
Executive Editor
The best show currently releasing episodes is without a doubt Tulsa King on Paramount+, and it just had a courtroom scene. While I hate to criticize anything about this show, this depiction of our trade was lacking in some ways, but compelling in others.
As he approached eighty years-old, Sylvester Stallone wanted to depict a confident, lovable, old-school mafia capo in a foreign environment, so he joined Tulsa King. The show centers around the aging Dwight Manfredi, a capo in a New York mafia family recently released from a lengthy prison stay. With much change having taken place in Brooklyn while Manfredi was behind bars, he is exiled to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he quickly establishes a foothold in a few local businesses—weed dispensaries, bars, etc. In the first season, he built a motley crew and took down a rival biker gang to solidify his regional position as tensions with New York came to a boil. And while doing all that, he had a fling with a local ATF agent who saved her own skin by accusing him of bribery at the very end of last season.
So, a few episodes into the second season, we finally see Manfredi’s trial for bribery of a federal agent. The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Oklahoma, corrupted by Manfredi’s rival in the dispensary business, tried the case himself. But Stallone and the other writers of Tulsa King wanted to stick it to legal nerds and deliver a one-day acquittal for Manfredi.
The trial began with Manfredi opting to proceed pro se. And we don’t see much until Manfredi calls his former lover, and now accuser, Agent Stacy Beale to the stand. Why the prosecution had not called their key witness to the stand, I do not know. Manfredi then engages in the oddest direct examination imaginable. He asks leading questions (which is understandable given that she is an adverse witness), but is only occasionally called on them. He uses most of the time to testify himself, only asking Agent Beale for clarification at the end. And he routinely argues to the jury on unrelated points. Nonetheless, Manfredi secures a not guilty verdict from the jury, probably because they thought he was a cool guy.
Tulsa King is a great show and a fresh take on mafia content, but I find myself tainted by our collective legal education. The suspension of disbelief gets a little harder after you learn what goes on in a courtroom.
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