The purpose of this paper is to examine two recent course readings, “Should we Blame Judge Judy?” (Podlas) and “The People’s Court” (Zucker and Her). As Podlas points out, a substantial portion of the public does not realize that Judge Judy is not a real judge (Podlas 38–39). Podlas blames this fact for a general lack of awareness concerning how real court works and how judges behave in court, and I think that this is a plausible position, but I want to explore a related topic: the possible relationship between exposure to Judge Judy — or just exposure to fictionalized, dramatized depictions of courtroom procedure — and a lack of trust in attorneys or the justice system in general.
My train of thought on this is somewhat tenuous, and I’ve not been able to find any literature examining the exact relationship I’m about to describe. My belief is this: dramatizations of legal work and especially courtroom procedure are likely to instill the belief that “real” courtroom advocacy entails hostility to the opposing lawyer and opposing witnesses, even to the point of breaches of decorum (witness the relentless questioning and ensuing “You can’t handle the truth!” of A Few Good Men). I think that they’re actually more likely to instill this belief than Judge Judy is to instill the belief that judges should be aggressive and partial, for two reasons.
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"Blame Judge Judy?".
First, popular depictions of courtroom procedure extend far beyond Judge Judy, and cover a wider range of scenarios; however, most of those depictions (at least, the majority to which I have been exposed) depict aggressive lawyers who breach rules of courtroom etiquette and decorum on a regular basis. Second, the idea that lawyers are supposed to be hostile and aggressive seems more intuitively plausible: it coheres with our ordinary notions of lawyers as arrogant, argumentative people; it seems that vigorous representation of your client’s interests might naturally entail some degree of hostility towards those who are arguing against those interests; most importantly, it almost seems to follow from the true fact that we have an adversarial justice system.
I think it is very likely that most people exposed regularly to popular depictions of courtroom procedure would expect opposing lawyers to be hostile towards one another. I think that could actually have the effect of reducing trust in the justice system, or at least trust in one’s lawyer, when one goes to court and realizes that one’s lawyer is not hostile towards his opponent, and may actually be friends with the opposing lawyer. Probably the paradigmatic case for this sort of effect would be a defense attorney — especially a public defender — interacting with a prosecuting attorney. Imagine, just for a moment, the perspective of a defendant who feels that the justice system has done him wrong. Maybe he really is innocent, maybe he thinks he should be able to get off on a technicality, or maybe it’s something else entirely. His defense attorney tries to convince him to take the plea deal offered by the prosecution, saying that he has no chance at trial, and generally seems as though he’s not at all interested in exonerating the defendant. He might naturally resent that sort of attitude; imagine how he would feel upon going to court. He might reasonably expect a “good” attorney, confronted with the prosecutor, to bristle with barely-concealed anger. Imagine his reaction to seeing his attorney greet the prosecutor cordially, or even with genuine friendship.
I acknowledge that all of this is conjecture, but I think that it is conjecture supported by the reading and by my own experiences. The reading gives good reason to think that many people expect hostility from their attorneys. My own experiences with the opinions of those who have interacted with the criminal justice system suggests that they strongly distrust public defenders and in fact see them as “working for the prosecution.” I think the mechanism I’ve described is a plausible explanation of this.
