PERRY MASON.

• Author: Suderman, Peter

"It's the state, Emily. The power of the state wants to crush you. No matter how minor your transgressions might seem to be." If HBO's exquisitely produced revival of Perry Mason has a mission statement, it's in those few lines.

The scene comes at a pivotal moment near the end of the fourth episode, in which defense lawyer Elias Birchard consults with Emily Dodson, a client wrongly accused of abetting the kidnapping and murder of her own infant son.

The crime was actually a product of corrupt cops and church elders, and Dodson was fingered for the murder not only because she'd had an affair with one of the kidnappers but because a sleazy district attorney thought pinning the crime on an unfaithful woman would be attention-grabbing-and thus politically useful in his mayoral quest.

Perry Mason is about the ways the criminal justice system fails to produce justice, sometimes because it is flawed, and sometimes because those who wield its power use their authority to pursue their own selfish ends rather...