OK, it's time for a good Friday topic.

Richard Alpert's complaint on another post about "The Practice" reflected my own negative opinion of that prime time soap opera, and it also got me thinking about the best and worst TV "treatments" of our profession (and crime/cops/court shows in general). I know that every single one of us will probably have to field this question during at least one holiday party this month, so let's get an early start:

Q: What are (or were) the best and/or worst "law" shows on TV, and why?

For best, I nominate Law & Order from the days of Ben Stone. To me, Stone had the right balance of dogged determination and knowing when to back off.

Worst, Ally McBeal. Do I really need to lay out all the reasons?

I have to agree with Law and Order. Even Professor Dix at UTLaw used it as an example in his crim pro class.

The worst is The Practice. (In what city does the defense "always" win?) Did anyone ever watch Philly? It made the prosecutors seem like board, useless, and disinterested members of the bar.

Law and Order seems to be the only one that doesn't make prosecutors out to be evil publicity seekers or just another lawyer in the way of the police solving crimes.

Other negative portrayals:

LA Law (glory seekers)
Night Court (buffoons)
Homicide (obstacle)
Murder One
NYPD Blue (Prosecutors are bad until they sleep with a homicide detective, whereupon they become anti-prosecutor prosecutors)
A Time to Kill (racists with political ambitions)
The Client (political ambitions)
In the Bedroom (weak and scared)

The commercials for The Practice are more than offensive enough for me to steer clear.

I can't help but agree with the obvious conclusion that the only show the protray prosecutors in a positive light is Law and Order.

But there was a show that I enjoyed so much that I taped most of the episodes. It was called "Equal Justice". Doesn't anyone else remember its brief run? The box officer stars in the cast were Sarah Jessica Parker who played a new prosecutor. Other names some might recognize are: Barry Miller, Cotter Smith, Debrah Farentino
George DiCenzo, James Wilder, Jane Kaczmarek,
Jon Tenney.


On the bad list I think most of the names have been posted and I concur with all of the selections.

The only other good shows are the reality courtroom shows which Im not even sure are still being aired. There was one that I lost touch with that featured a new case each week from a DA's office in California. I found it to be good and the State actually won most of the trials?!

I also note that no one has mentioned Court TV. I will have to qualify my nomination of that show with an observation that the performance of many of the outside Texas prosecutors are uninspiring.

My "favorite" part about Law & Order (when I manage to watch) is the frequency of jailhouse confessions prompted by a twenty-second interrogation . . . even with defense counsel sitting at the table. You could probably substitute this dialogue in about a dozen shows:

Prosecutor: Well, Don, can you explain why we found your fingerprints on the insurance claim form?

Don: OK, you think you're smarter than me, but you don't really know why I did it.

Defendant Atty: Don, I think you should be quiet now. . .

Don: Shut Up. They think they know, but they have no clue why I did it.

(And on from there)
Question: Any thoughts about whether "anti-septic" portrayals of interrogation in the media hurt or help prosecutors' efforts at trial or in developing law related to voluntariness? Doing a good interrogation and getting a confession is tough to do, and I wonder sometimes whether media portrayals that make it seem like every bad guy's conscience gets to him leads jurors or courts to conclude too quickly that involuntariness standard for confessions should be low.

But as far as courtroom dramas go, I guess L&O is better than the rest of the crop--despite the fact that they take great liberty with the facts in "ripped from the headlines" shows.

Hey, Richard, I would think you would have mentioned CSI, since they have already investigated your murder by windshield case. I certainly hope you have the physical evidence lined up like they did.

I am surprised to see that no one has even mentioned that Southern charmer in the blue suit who ferrets out the real criminal in only the way that he can. Surely Ben has affected the way lots of people view lawyers and tbe system. Or am I the only prosecutor who just couldn't let go of Andy?

Frankly, at the end of the day, I am far more interested in reruns of Night Court.

I have never watched "law shows" on TV and can't imagine why a lawyer would want to do so. It's punishment enough to deal with it during the daytime.

Worst show--the Practice because it takes itself so seriously and is silly plus all the reasons listed above. Best show--L.A. Law but I used to watch that show before going to law school. Law and Order is well written but not as escapist as L.A. Law was.

quote:

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Originally posted by mike bartley:
I have never watched "law shows" on TV and can't imagine why a lawyer would want to do so. It's punishment enough to deal with it during the daytime.

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I agree with that but I've also never understood why people would want to watch dramas concerned with emergency rooms.

Ed - come on, you have to watch ER.....the emergency room drama is best.......they even throw in a little law now and then (malpractice and criminal patients) it's a great escape from the real world!

L&O has to be the best law show......but don't forget about Miranda Hobbs (the lawyer on Sex & The City)....now there's a lawyer who never practices law! (another great escape, by the way)

Law and Order is the hands-down winner in terms of acurately presenting the law as it applies to our jobs. The monologue-like cross examinations and the "sit downs" in the DA's office with the defendants and their lawyer are just a wee bit misleading. And how many prosecutors in Manhattan have time to personally interview witnesses at their homes or place of business?

I disagree with the previous assessment of Philly's portrayal of prosecutors. I thought that show did a great job showing the tremendous frustrations that go with this job -- knowing we're doing something important, hating the fact that it pays better to keep 'em out of jail than it does to put 'em in, and just trying to accept that sometimes we have to live with a disposition that's far from ideal or just, simply because it's the best we could do under the circumstances. And what other TV show has ever shown lawyers casually plea-bargaining over people's lives in the hallway, right before they discuss their respective plans for the weekend? That's reality.

If all you guys are watching these shows, where do you find the time to prepare for trial? I'm like Mike; I get enough of this at work. Who wants to go home and watch badly done fiction. I do remember Perry Mason (whom no one has mentioned), and it was pretty bad. Wouldn't you rather watch "true crime" ala 20/20 and Court TV to see how prosecutors always get it wrong?

The show on nbc--one of the law and order series--but they showed actual footage from trials in San Diego wasn't bad. In terms of drama, some of the best drama in the Sopranos occurs in their defense attorneys' offices (feds aren't bugging them there). The only ER I saw was one where the doctor with his bare hands started performing open heart surgery on the fly (I think he massaged the heart as well without wearing gloves) but a hospital seems a pretty depressing area to find escape entertainment (unless you're going for comedy). My vote still goes for L.A. Law because even though that show wasn't realistic it had personalities and drama over all of the others combined. Geraldo's show covering the O.J. civil trial was excellent in terms of providing an intelligent overview of what actually was going on in a courtroom.

Funny how Shannon's original question "what is the best law show" quickly evolved into "what makes lawyers look best." Come on, Homicide and NYPD Blue are the hands-down, alltime winners, if only for their portrayal of the criminals and witnesses. L & O hasn't been any good since about its 4th season, when they started letting the lawyers yell "objection" and quit presenting legal issues in favor of headline of the month stories.

I hate the following things about Law & Order:
1) The "in chambers" Motions to Suppress that the defense always wins. Ex: Here's a videotape showing the defendant killing 8 people. Defense atty. whips out a MTS that the State has obviously never seen. The liberal NY judge suppresses the tape.
2) The new, blonde ADA who looks about 14 years old, and was squeamish about her office seeking the death penalty.
3) The wimpy woman DA played by Diane Weist (who I like as an actress). The newly elected Fred Thompson DA is better.
4) The obviously guilty people get acquitted and the people we could never even get indicted are convicted.
5) The goofy "conference room confessions".
6) That the DAs seem to only have one case on their plate at a time. Miraculously, they get the case so fresh the body is still warm, they tromp around town interviewing witnesses themselves, and the next week, they're having the trial. WOW!

Don't even get me started on The Practice. I usually tell juries in voir dire that I think Helen Gamble would win a case now and then if she'd just stop and EAT SOMETHING!

I loved Grace Van Owen's car, though on LA Law. (Vintage BMW 3.0 CS.) And she was such a bitch. A true role model.

I am so glad to see such interest in the compelling subject of TV law shows. For those of you who just can't get enough, you might try this web site, which keeps you in touch with all kinds of info on such TV shows:

http://tvcopshows.allinfo-about.com/index.html

I always thought the blonde ADA on LA Law somehow didn't act like a prosecutor. She always had this long face on--like she carried the problems of the world on her shoulders. In my experience, prosecutors are the jolliest of attys--we don't have to put up with crazed clients for one thing.

L&O used to be my favorite--when the female ADA was this brunette with an Irish name. After she left, it was never the same.

I was intrigued at how different my work is from theirs. I work in a rural district, and their gritty, wise-guy cops seem so different from my good-old-boy deputies. In fact, the judges, the defense attys, the prosecutors--everybody, is a wiseguy. Just like I would expect from a bunch of New Yorkers.

At the TDCAA seminar on crimes against children last summer, one of the speakers was a former Manhatten ADA. After her talk, I went up to talk to her. I waited until all the serious questioners were out of the way and had left, so that none of them would think I was a moron for asking. And then I asked her: how accurate is L&O?

She gave me this terrible, pained look and said, "I HATE that show! I can't watch it. The only thing realistic about it is the Manhatten skyline."

She added that the DA for Manhatten is Mr. Morganthou, who is about 90 years old, and unlike the show, he did not take a personal interest in every armed robbery case. Also, she said, unlike the show, female prosecutors are allowed to try cases without male supervision.

I gathered from watching the show that if you were a male prosecutor, they assigned you a cute female prosecutor to run around & do your scut work, which (& I hope no one thinks I'm a sexist or less than 100% PC for saying this)I thought sounded pretty good.

So I'm pretty disallusioned with L&O. Now I'm back to Perry Mason as my favorite lawyer show.

[This message was edited by Terry Breen on 12-10-02 at .]