Lights, Cameras, Court!
I spend a looooooot of time in courtrooms. So, while I'm not a lawyer, I have a pretty good idea of how the legal process plays out and what court procedures are like. Because of this exposure and experience, by husband gets kinda annoyed with me when I start yelling at the television about how it "just doesn't happen like that." I know it's fiction, but I get so frustrated that, because of Hollywood, most people think DNA tests can be completed in an afternoon, that closing arguments are dramatic and last five minutes, that murder cases get to trial in a week, that hearsay evidence is admissible ... you get the gist. I spend my entire day striving for accuracy and truth, and it feels undermining.
Luckily, some productions do make an effort to get it right. In a recent Writers Guild of America, West article, Loyola Law School professor (and one of my favorite go-to legal experts) Laurie Levenson discussed how she consults for television and film productions about courtroom procedure and such. The article is by Redondo Beach resident Denis Faye, a comic book author, journalist and screenwriter we've featured on the Daily Breeze's Daily Link for his very funny blog, Easy Fiend.
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About the Blogger
Larry Altman has covered crime in the South Bay since 1990. He's seen it all - the missing model who turned up dead in the desert, the wives found dead in trunks, the high-school coaches who get a little too close to their players. He drives his young colleagues nuts with his "I remember when" stories. He welcomes your tips and observations about the present, and you can mix in a little Lakers basketball talk if you like.
E-mail Larry at larry.altman@dailybreeze.com.
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Denise -
Thanks for introducing me to Laurie. She was really fun to interview!
Denis
I know what you mean about the criminal justice system on TV vs real life. I'm always telling the television "OK....that's not the way it works!" Men and women thrown together into a holding cell at the police station bugs me. Visitors being brought into the cell to sit down and have a chit chat with the prisoner bugs me. And a prisoner sitting in the drunk tank and pulling out a cell phone drive me up the wall. No wonder people think jail ain't all that bad.