• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, November 11, 2015

Lawyers apparently think prospective jurors are overly influenced by television court shows.

The evidence is anecdotal, stemming from my experiences this week as a prospective juror in lower Manhattan. It wasn’t the first time I had observed an obsession with TV and its influence on the part of attorneys I encountered in courtrooms and jury rooms while serving on jury duty.

This week’s tour of jury duty revived memories of a past tour in which lawyers addressing a jury panel repeatedly brought up the subject of TV shows that dramatize courtroom proceedings, with special emphasis on “Law & Order.” The same thing happened this time around.

“Do you watch those ‘Law & Order’ shows or anything like that?” one attorney asked prospective jurors in our 35-member panel this week as she and three other attorneys went through the process of winnowing our group down to six jurors and two alternates (it was a civil case).

The context of her question was this: She explained that she wanted prospective jurors who watch the “Law & Order” shows to know that the courtrooms and lawyers depicted on the show are different from what jurors will see in a real-life trial.

For most of us, this distinction may seem plainly obvious, but the attorney’s repeated questioning about the TV-viewing habits of these prospective jurors implied that in the attorney’s experience, people who watch courtroom dramas on TV don’t always know the difference. People expect lawyers “to be like actors on TV,” she said, “but we’re not like the actors on TV.”

In our group, it seemed as if everyone was intellectually capable of discerning the difference between a TV show and real life. Almost no one admitted to being a regular watcher of “Law & Order.” In their answers, no distinction was made between the original “Law & Order” and any of its spinoff progeny (only one of which is still around and making new episodes -- “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”).

So jurors would usually answer yes -- they have seen “Law & Order.” But you got the feeling that none of them took the show very seriously. One juror noted that the show (and presumably its spinoffs) is “on all the time,” which makes it difficult to miss. This drew a laugh from the whole group because evidently everyone has had the same experience of encountering a “Law & Order” episode of some sort almost every time they turn on the TV and begin grazing through the cable channels.

Although this question was asked of every prospective juror, none of their answers disqualified any of them from this jury (those dismissed were let go for any number of other reasons, including yours truly). In other words, none exhibited an inability to tell fact from fiction when it comes to courts.

The attorney questioning the jurors also wanted to ensure that the group understood the differences between criminal trials -- like the ones seen on the “Law & Order” shows -- and civil cases such as the one we were being interviewed for (it was a personal-injury case). 

As I languished in this jury room sleepily listening to this attorney questioning the prospective jurors about their TV viewing habits and awaiting my own turn, I considered a scenario in which I would school this attorney on the world of TV court shows. “ ‘Law & Order’ is one thing,” I thought of saying. “But in the context of this civil case, wouldn’t it be better if you quizzed these jurors on their ‘Judge Judy’ habits?

“It might interest you to know,” I might have said, sounding like a gassy know-it-all, “that ‘Judge Judy’ is the highest-rated show in daytime syndication. The show is all about civil cases, and it airs in back-to-back half-hour episodes five days a week. Since each episode covers two cases -- that’s 20 civil cases a week.”

And unlike a scripted drama like “Law & Order,” the cases being argued on “Judge Judy” and the other daytime court shows are “real” cases. Plus, if memory serves, the decisions rendered on the shows are binding (at least they’re supposed to be) -- just like in real courts.

So trial attorneys, my advice to you, not that you asked, is this: Instead of focusing on “Law & Order,” try asking your jury panel about “Judge Judy” and “The Peoples Court.”

At one point in this voir dire process, one of the attorneys addressing the group actually used the phrase “a Perry Mason moment” when referring to the kind of courtroom drama some prospective jurors might expect in a real-life trial. Really? “Perry Mason”? If only real-life trials were like that.