Without taking away from another poster's comment on how heinous the murder of Chin Ho was (along with three other people killed by a bomb in the middle of the show), I meed to point out that Hawaii doesn't have a death penalty and hasn't since statehood in 1959. Johnny Rego and his two renegade hirelings would face multiple murder-one charges all right, but they would face life imprisonment. I don't know if Hawaii had life imprisonment without possibility of parole as they do now, but a cop killer and vicious mobster wasn't going to get out any time soon unless he broke prison (which happened in a couple of episodes). I don't think CBS policy at the time would have permitted the show to do a death-penalty episode anyway, and they probably had serious qualms over the 16 gunshots and a bombing (not to mention McGarrett beating up Rego and shoving a gun in his face and threatening him with everything). At the time, I'm told, there was an average limit of three violent acts (gunshots, punches thrown, etc.) per episode. It was no wonder that CBS started liking Barnaby Jones, the mildest of all the cop shows (and the most successful) over Five-O and others at this point.
Review of A Death in the Family
