CAMERAS IN COURT

CAMERAS IN COURT

Cameras and courtrooms have long had an uneasy relationship. Blaming cameras for disrupting trials, the AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION (ABA) led the drive for their removal in the mid-1930s. The effort succeeded: all but two state courts banned them, and Congress prohibited
them from all federal trials. But the television era ushered in new problems, and courts eventually were forced to grapple with the constitutional
question of whether TV cameras are
injurious to a defendant’s right to a fair trial. In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court appeared to say they are, in Estes v. Texas, 381 U.S. 532, 85 S. Ct.
1628, 14 L. Ed. 2d 543, overturning a conviction
because cameras had denied a defendant his DUE
PROCESS rights. But the Court changed its mind
in the 1981 case of Chandler v. Florida, 449 U.S.
560, 101 S. Ct. 802, 66 L. Ed. 2d 740. Reacting to
the permissiveness of Chandler, many states
passed legislation allowing televised trials. And
from 1991 to 1994 some federal courts conducted
an experiment with cameras.
Photographers lost their place in court in the
early 1930s thanks to a highly sensational trial,
and it would take four decades for them to
regain it. In 1934, nearly 700 reporters and photographers
descended on the New Jersey town
where Bruno Hauptmann was on trial for KIDNAPPING
and murdering the baby of famous
aviator Charles A. Lindbergh and author Anne
Morrow Lindbergh. The trial judge allowed still
photography, but was unprepared for the barrage
of flashbulbs and the presence of a newsreel
camera that was smuggled inside the court.
Decrying the media circus that resulted, the
ABA in 1937 called for prohibiting photography
in its Canons of Professional and Judicial Ethics.
At the same time the U.S. Congress amended the
Federal Rules of CRIMINAL PROCEDURE to ban
cameras and any form of broadcasting from federal
courts. All but two states—Texas and Colorado—
gradually adopted the ABA ban. Later,
Texas permitted television cameras and it was a
Texas criminal case that led to the next stage of
development in this area of U.S. law.
In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court took up the
constitutional issue in Estes. This case involved a claim by a convicted swindler that the televising
of his heavily publicized trial had deprived him
of his right to due process under the FOURTEENTH
AMENDMENT. The counterargument
advanced by the state of Texas is still the one
most pro-camera supporters continued to make
into the early 2000s: cameras neither caused distractions
nor prejudiced the trial and in fact
served the public’s right to know in a manner
both educational and likely to promote respect
for the courts. The Supreme Court sided with
the defendant. Emphasizing the obtrusive technology
used in the courtroom, from fat cables to
the red light on cameras, the Court decided that
the trial had not been fair and overturned the
conviction. Yet, to many observers, Estes
appeared to stop short of announcing that all
photographic or broadcast coverage of criminal
trials is inherently a denial of due process; it
focused narrowly on the particulars in Billie Sol
Estes’s case. More important, observers noted,
the decision looked to the future. “When the
advances in these arts permit reporting by … television
without their present hazards to a fair
trial,” Justice TOM C. CLARK wrote for the majority
in Estes, “we will have another case.”
Developments in the 1970s changed the picture.
Technology had improved, making TV
cameras far less disruptive, and the electronic
media was demanding the same access to trials
enjoyed by the print media. The ABA became
much more tentative about its hard-line position.
Its Committee on Fair Trial-Free Press recommended
that the ABA revise its standards.
Encouraged to experiment, a number of states
tried short-term pilot programs as a first step
toward changing their laws. Then, in 1978, the
Conference of State Chief Justices voted 44–1 to
approve a resolution allowing the highest court
of each state to set its own guidelines for radio,
TV, and other photographic coverage. By 1980,
19 states permitted coverage of trial and appellate
courts, three permitted coverage of trial
courts only, six permitted coverage of appellate
courts only, and 12 others were considering the
issue.
The U.S. Supreme Court provided the decisive
push with its ruling in Chandler in 1981.
Chandler revisited the Estes decision of 16 years
earlier and on quite similar terms: in Florida,
two men convicted of BURGLARY claimed that
televising their trial over their objections was a
denial of due process. At the time Florida was
following a pilot program for televising and permitting
still photography at state trials under
canon 3A(7) of the Florida CODE OF JUDICIAL
CONDUCT. The parties in Chandler read Estes
differently: the appellants argued that Estes
meant that the televising of criminal trials is
inherently a denial of due process, whereas the
state claimed that Estes did not establish any
such constitutional rule. Seeking to clarify the
earlier ruling, which had comprised no less than
six opinions, the Supreme Court agreed with
Florida. It held that states could provide access
to the electronic media regardless of whether
defendants wanted it. Moreover, the burden of
showing how cameras have a prejudicial effect
on a given trial would fall on the defendant.
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger’s majority opinion
cautioned, “Dangers lurk in this, as in most
experiments, but unless we were to conclude
that television coverage under all conditions is
prohibited by the Constitution, the states must
be free to experiment.”
The freedom to experiment brought cameras
firmly into state courts. The ABA abandoned
its prohibitive stance and more states
began conducting experiments of their own.
The launch on July 1, 1991 of COURT TV, a cable
channel that provided televised trial coverage of
newsworthy cases, sought to further legitimatize
the use of cameras in the courtroom. By 1995,
47 states permitted some form of televising of
state trials. But in 1994, the federal court system
chose otherwise. The federal JUDICIAL CONFERENCE
OF THE UNITED STATES authorized a threeyear
experiment in 1991 that permitted camera
coverage of federal civil trials. Most judges who
participated in the experiment, which involved six trial court districts and two appellate districts,
viewed the experience favorably; in fact, a
report prepared by the Judicial Conference recommended
extending camera coverage to all
federal district and appellate courts. But in 1994,
the conference voted to end the experiment
without explanation. Many advocates of televising
federal trials blamed this decision on the
excessive publicity from the 1994 pretrial hearings
in the case of O. J. SIMPSON, a popular
sports and entertainment personality who was
accused and later acquitted of murdering his
former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her
friend Ronald Lyle Goldman.
By the beginning of the twenty-first century,
all 50 states allowed some level of camera presence
in their courts (only the District of Columbia
prohibited cameras in trial and appellate
proceedings), but the rules governing when and
where cameras are allowed varied enormously.
In New York, for example, cameras have been
banned from criminal trials since 1952 under
Section 52 of the state’s CIVIL RIGHTS Law. A
2001 challenge to the law by Court TV argued
that Section 52 was unconstitutional because it
violates the FIRST AMENDMENT. But in 2003,
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Shirley
Werner Kornreich upheld the ban on cameras,
noting that televising trials could disrupt the
proceedings enough to have an impact on the
fairness of those trials.
In 2001 the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives
examined the issue of whether cameras
should be allowed in federal court.An effort
to enact legislation had failed in Congress a year
earlier. In November 2001 the SENATE JUDICIARY
COMMITTEE voted 12–7 to bring a proposed
bill to the full Senate; action on that
legislation, as well as similar legislation in the
House, is pending.
The U.S. Supreme Court does not allow
cameras in its proceedings; transcripts are made
available, but not immediately. In a move that
surprised many, the Court allowed the release of
audiotapes of its proceedings in the Florida presidential
election results late in 2000. The Court
deemed those hearings to be important enough
to warrant a special dispensation of its normal
procedures. In 2003, the Court again allowed
audiotapes to be released in the University of
Michigan Law School’s AFFIRMATIVE ACTION case,
as well as the hearings on the constitutionality of
the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform
law. The Court has emphasized that such access
will only be allowed in rare instances and only
for cases it deems crucial enough. As for televised
Supreme Court proceedings, Chief Justice
WILLIAM REHNQUIST wrote to Senator Arlen Spector
of Pennsylvania, a proponent of television
coverage, that “a majority [of the Justices] are of
the view that it would be unwise to depart from
our current practice.” Rehnquist has stated that he would not allow camera coverage if even one
justice was opposed.
FURTHER READINGS
ABA Journal. 74 (November): 52.
“Are We Being Fed a Steady Diet of Tabloid Television?”
1994. ABA Journal (May).
Caher, John. 2003. “Court TV effort to End Camera Ban
Sparks Debate on Civil Rights Law.”New York Law Journal
229 (April 23).
“Cameras in the Courtroom: Should Judges Permit High-
Profile Trials to Be Televised?” 1995. American Bar Association
(ABA) Journal (September).
“Court TV: Frequently Asked Questions.”Available online at
(accessed October
13, 2003).
Fong, Liz. 2002. “Judges Restrict Camera Access in Courtrooms.”
News Media & the Law 26 (fall): 12.
“Mass Media’s Impact on Litigation, Lawyers, and Judges.”
1995. Review of Litigation (February 24).
Moyer, Bruce. 2000. “House OKs Court Improvements and
Cameras in Court.” The Federal Lawyer 47 (July): 12–13.
“Senate Passes Cameras-in-Court Bill.” 2001. Associated Press
(November 30).
“That’s Entertainment! The Continuing Debate over Cameras
in the Courtroom.” 1995. Federal Lawyer (July).
CROSS-REFERENCES
Courtroom Television Network; Freedom of the Press; Lindbergh
Kidnapping.

“Raise Your Right Hand and Try to Look Natural”: The Courtroom Camera Debate

Is allowing television cameras in courtrooms
a good idea? U.S. law never tires
of debating the question.Widely banned
after the sensational 1934 Bruno Hauptmann
KIDNAPPING and murder trial,
cameras in the courtroom have fluctuated
for decades in their acceptability.
The courts, the media, lawyers, and
scholars have often heralded the camera
as if it were democracy’s own eye—or
railed at it as a leering Peeping Tom. Supporters
claim that cameras enlighten the
public, while opponents counter that
cameras corrupt the trial process and
yield bad journalism. Only since the mid-
1970s has the pro-camera lobby been
ascendant. By 1995, with 47 states leaving
the decision to permit cameras up to
judges, and the CABLE TELEVISION
network COURT TV broadcasting nearly
as fast as courts can be called to
session, televised trials were
routine affairs. But despite
complaints, federal trials
remained largely off-limits.
Moreover, controversy over the
media’s treatment of the
O. J. SIMPSON murder trial
brought new calls for pulling the plug
altogether.
In 1934, Hauptmann was tried for
kidnapping and murdering the young
son of aviator Charles A. Lindbergh and
author Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The
trial excited the nation, obsessed the news
media, and created a circus atmosphere
of “expert” commentators, tabloid interviews,
souvenir hawkers, and courtroom
grandstanding. In 1995, the trial of Simpson,
who was accused and ultimately
acquitted of the murders of his former
wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her
friend Ronald Lyle Goldman, caused similar
excitement, obsession, and atmospherics.
Of course, the camera’s role in
each case was quite different. One 145
journalists crammed into the Hauptmann
courtroom, and flashbulbs popped
and a smuggled newsreel camera turned,
all in violation of the trial judge’s orders.
Afterward, critics deplored the media’s
behavior. Sixty-one years later, a single
television camera was permitted to follow
the Simpson trial. Critics decried the
media “circus,” “frenzy,” “orgy,” and so
forth. In both instances, it was said that
cameras skewed the proceedings and gave
a distorted view of the justice
system. Some said the media
got Hauptmann convicted;
some believe the media got
Simpson off.
On the simplest level, then,
the debate is about the press.
Critics believe journalists are
only barely capable of behaving themselves
in court. After the Hauptmann
experience, the AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION
(ABA) reacted furiously. It
swiftly passed judicial canon 35 of its
Canons of Professional and Judicial
Ethics:
Proceedings in court should be
conducted with fitting dignity
and decorum. The taking of
photographs in the courtroom,
during sessions of the court or
recesses between sessions, and
the broadcasting of court proceedings
are calculated to detract
from the essential dignity of the
proceedings, degrade the court
and create misconceptions with
respect thereto in the mind of
the public and should not be
permitted.
This 1937 rule led the majority of
states to ban still cameras and was
amended in 1952 to include TV cameras.
Although the ABA has long since
changed its views, distrust of the media’s
intentions survives in the early 2000s in
state rules governing courtroom proceedings.
These guidelines strictly dictate
how many cameras are allowed (usually,
one), what they may do (remain stationary),
whom they may film (never jurors
and sometimes not witnesses), who may
operate them (one person), what that
operator may wear (appropriate dress),
and when she or he may leave the courtroom
(only during recess). It is hardly
accidental that the guidelines resemble a
teacher’s orders to a class.
While generally accepting limits as
necessary to the proper administration of
justice, supporters of courtroom journalism
chafe at the idea that cameras get in
the way. In the Simpson trial, for example,
when Judge Lance Ito threatened to have
the camera removed, Floyd Abrams, a noted FIRST AMENDMENT attorney,
entered a plea to have it remain: the camera,
Abrams said, was “absolutely, positively,
100 percent not guilty.” Not
surprisingly, this is also the view of Court
TV. In its 1995 report called Facts and
Opinions about Cameras in the Courtrooms,
the network noted approvingly
that states require shielding witnesses,
children, and others from the camera.
Exactly, respond opponents. “The first
thing to note about such options is that
their very existence affirms the adverse
effects of cameras on witnesses,” wrote
Professor Rory K. Little, of the Hastings
College of the Law.
This aspect of the debate—the effect
on a witness of being filmed—is contentious.
Few people are perfectly comfortable
on television; even actors and
reporters are prone to stage fright. But
trials themselves can be tense events.
One view is Court TV’s, which attributes
nervousness to publicity and speaking in
front of a group: “There is no evidence
that it is related to the camera, or that
[witnesses] would be less nervous in the
presence of the judge, jury, defendant
and three dozen furiously-scribbling
reporters.” The network backs up its
claim with state court research. But even
if the majority of states are satisfied, not
every observer is. In 1993, the Washington,
D.C., Public Defender Service noted
that a substantial percentage of witnesses
feel uncomfortable on camera, and the
district’s U.S. attorney’s office has
expressed fears about cameras’ chilling
witness cooperation and even endangering
witnesses. The media and tourists
may hound witnesses who have appeared
on television, and so may others with
frightening motives. After Pablo Fenjves
testified in the Simpson case about noises
made by Nicole Brown Simpson’s dog, he
told Time magazine that he received
death threats.
Lawyers and judges can also be
affected by the camera. Critics say the
temptation to grandstand is overwhelming—
lawyers will show off, aware that
their reputation can be bolstered by
flights of impressive speech. Supporters
respond that lawyers had big egos long
before cameras were there to record
them. Yet, can judges keep order, let alone
resist the temptation themselves? This
old question in the debate drew comment
by the U.S. Supreme Court in Estes v.
Texas (381 U.S. 532, 85 S. Ct. 1628, 14 L.
Ed. 2d 543 [1965]). In his concurring
opinion in that case, Chief Justice EARL
WARREN looked scathingly on a Texas
trial judge who said that he had sworn to
uphold the state constitution—not the
federal Constitution. (Of course, state
judges must uphold both.) “One is entitled
to wonder,”Warren wrote, “if such a
statement would be made in a court of
justice by any state trial judge except as an
appeal calculated to gain the favor of his
viewing audience.” And, in 1995, much
commentary in the Simpson case asked
whether Judge Ito had succumbed to the
allure of the camera when he allowed
prosecutors and defense attorneys to
bicker endlessly. No, said supporters,
cameras can actually be a corrective for
these problems. As attorney Abrams put
it, “A single, silent courtroom camera
serves as an antidote to such behavior by
truthfully showing the public how attorneys
and judges actually behave.”
The effect on juries concerns critics in
a special way. Since juries are not televised,
there would seem to be little reason to
worry about what they will do in the jury
box. Not so. It is what they may do afterward—
especially in high-profile cases—
and how that may affect their performance
in the box that bothers critics.
“[W]orst of all,” wrote attorney, author,
and camera-opponent Wendy Kaminer,
“juries will play to the prospect of appearing
on talk shows when the trial is over . . .
we can’t expect jurors not to be corrupted
by publicity.” Book deals present another
problem. There is the real possibility that
people will try to get on juries simply to
turn a buck; in fact, one person was dismissed
from the Simpson jury for allegedly
taking notes for this very reason. Thus,
opponents argue, cameras can jeopardize
the quality of justice: not only can they
result in bad juries, but the dismissal of
jurors can threaten to sink an entire trial.
Against this argument, supporters can say
little except words of regret about human
nature. “Maybe we should, at long last,
learn a lesson from Snow White’s stepmother,”
Abrams advised. “Our mirrors
are not our problem.”
Given its length, notoriety, and multiple
problems, the Simpson case produced
a backlash against televising trials. Afterward,
some judges barred cameras, and
others put new restrictions on them.Vowing
that “nothing like the O.J. Simpson
case is going to happen in my courtroom,”
Judge Lawrence Antolini of the California
Superior Court limited filming to five
minutes a day. Critics mocked supporters’
claims that cameras help educate the public.
As attorney Kaminer quipped in the
ABA Journal, “People who claim they
watch the Simpson case to educate themselves
remind me of people who say they
buy Playboy for the articles.” Court TV
took much of the blame for its choice of
what to broadcast—not only the Simpson
case, but the previous trials of Lorena Bobbitt for the castration of her husband
and of brothers Erik Menendez and Lyle
Menendez for the murder of their parents.
One of the network’s sharpest scourges,
attorney ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ, proposed
an alternative: a nonprofit channel
to be modeled on the cable network
C-SPAN that would broadcast trials of a
more illuminating nature.News programs
were criticized, too, for carrying too little
footage during a brief experiment in
broadcasting federal trials; the FEDERAL
JUDICIAL CENTER determined that the
average length of coverage in a newscast
was only 17 seconds.
In the wake of the backlash, supporters
backpedaled as quickly as possible.
“The obsession with this particular television
trial [Simpson’s] should not lead
to a rejection of televised trials,” the New
York Times declared in an editorial (June
11, 1995). USA Today editorialized, “As
aberrant as the Simpson case is, it has
become a civics lesson in the rights
against SEARCH AND SEIZURE, the role
of judges and the duties of jurors” (May
5, 1995). Trotting out statistics that
showed that its viewers come away with
greater understanding and respect for the
courts, Court TV argued that “in-court
camera coverage is, by definition, as dignified
as the process and arguably more
‘tasteful’ than out-of-court tabloid coverage.”
And when confronted with the
charge that cameras had dragged out the
length of the Simpson trial, supporters
pointed to earlier trials that had lasted
much longer without cameras.
One venue in which there seems virtually
no chance of televised court proceedings
any time soon is the U.S.
Supreme Court. Supreme Court justices
have assiduously shunned publicity surrounding
the cases they hear. Over the
years, justices have felt that such publicity
could detract from the serious nature of
the Court’s business. The common practice
is for transcripts of proceedings to be
issued after a case has been decided. On
rare occasions, the Supreme Court has
allowed audiotapes of proceedings to be
released to the public. The hearings surrounding
the 2000 presidential contest
between GEORGE W. BUSH and AL
GORE were deemed sufficiently important
by the Court to warrant this, as were
the 2003 hearings for the University of
Michigan Law School AFFIRMATIVE
ACTION case and the constitutionality of
the McCain-Feingold campaign finance
reform law. Chief Justice WILLIAM
REHNQUIST stated that he would not
allow cameras in the Supreme Court if
even one justice objects. Judging from the
comments of Justice DAVID SOUTER,
who has testified before Congress twice
in opposition of cameras in the court—
and who has said that
cameras will come in over my
dead body—
chances are the Supreme Court will be
camera-free for quite some time.
The future of cameras in courtrooms
is anyone’s guess. Eager to expand its
business, Court TV invites its viewers to
help it lobby states for greater access. The
network and other supporters especially
want the Federal Judicial Conference to
reopen federal trials to cameras. Critics
shudder at the thought, and after Simpson,
many proponents concede that this
is unlikely. Also unlikely is that camera
opponents will get their way in state
courtrooms, unless the effect of Simpson
is so great that it can undo fifty years of
legal reforms. As for federal trials, as of
the early 2000s cameras are permitted in
only two federal courts, the Second U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals in New York
and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
in San Francisco. Legislation is pending
in both houses of Congress that would
give all federal judges the option of allowing
television cameras to broadcast trials.
Despite continued strong opposition, the
camera fought a long battle to become a
fixture in court, and it will be quite difficult
to send the camera away.
FURTHER READINGS
Court TV: Frequently Asked Questions, 2003.
Available online at (accessed October 21,
2003).
“Senate Passes Cameras-in-Court Bill.” 2001.
Associated Press. (November 30).
West, Woody. 2003. “Will TV Cameras turn
Trials into Survivor?” Insight on the News
19 (April 1).
Wolf, Dick, and Bill Guttentag. 2003. “Cameras
in camera.”The Wall Street Journal (July 9).
CROSS-REFERENCES
Dershowitz, Alan Morton; Simpson, O. J.;
Souter, David Hackett.

Judge Wapner and The People’s Court

Before televised trials became commonplace,
there was The People’s Court. This highly popular
syndicated TV program ran from 1981 through
1993 and featured retired judge Joseph A. Wapner,
of the California Superior Court. Millions of viewers
tuned in daily to watch Wapner hear actual cases
from small-claims court. The parties agreed to submit
to his judgment of their sometimes petty, and
often quite funny, disputes, which included claims
for fender benders, complaints about plumbing jobs,
and even a plaintiff who sued when a liquor store
that had sold him a flat can of beer refused to give
him a fresh one. The ground-breaking The People’s
Court probably did more than any other program
before it to open the way for the reality programming
tide that swept civil and criminal trials onto
television. It also popularized understanding of at
least one kind of courtroom process, that of small
claims.
The genius of The People’s Court was its
verisimilitude. The program operated by the rules of
California’s small-claims courts: no lawyers were
allowed, aggrieved parties represented themselves,
and the damage limit was $1,500. To find participants
for the show, Ralph Edwards Productions combed
court dockets for cases that were essentially matters
of principle and then invited the parties to appear on
the program. On the show, as in real life, both parties
told their sides of the story to the judge, whose decision
was final. The show’s 12-year run featured more
than 5,000 cases.
The affably grumpy, no-nonsense Wapner certainly
knew his profession. The former president of
the California Judges Association had earned
degrees in philosophy and the law from the University
of Southern California in the late 1940s, had practiced
law for a decade, and had tried civil and
criminal cases for twenty years before retiring from
the bench in 1979. His TV rulings were commonsensical,
swift, and just. The victim of a bum can of beer,
for instance, was awarded eighty cents. In another
case, one man in a romantic love triangle had bitten
off the ear of another rather than give up the woman
in question; Wapner awarded the one-eared man
$1,500 for pain and suffering. As part of the show’s
terms, the production company paid all awards, and
the aggrieved parties merely agreed to call it a day
after the judge passed sentence.
The effect of The People’s Court has often been
debated. The show may have encouraged litigiousness,
according to such critics as noted attorney
ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ and Judge Abner J. Mikva, of
the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia. It is undoubtedly true that the use of
small-claims courts increased in the 1980s after the
show began airing. Others found in Wapner a traditional
model of fairness: in a 1989 essay in the University
of Chicago Law Review, Justice ANTONIN
SCALIA, of the U.S. Supreme Court, described
Wapner as a descendant of Solomon and Louis IX of
France. Wapner himself saw the program as educational.
To the public, which made The People’s Court the
fifth-highest-rated syndicated show in the mid-1980s,
Wapner became the best-known judge in the United
States. A 1989 Washington Post poll found that fewer
than 10 percent of respondents knew the name of
Justice WILLIAM H. REHNQUIST, of the U.S. Supreme
Court, but more than half could identify Wapner.
Wapner published the book A View from the Bench in
1987. After the show’s cancellation in 1992, he served
as president of the board of directors of the Brandeis-
Bardin Institute, a Jewish cultural organization
in California.
As tastes in daytime television changed in the
1990s, Wapner’s descendants reflected the times.
The era of no-holds-barred reality TV had dawned,
and into it in 1996 barreled Judge Judy. If the
betrayed and the broken-hearted went on The Jerry
Springer Show to smash chairs, Judge Judy was
where they settled their legal differences for the
price of a tongue-lashing from retired New York City
judge Judy Sheindlin. Averaging 9 million viewers per
day, Sheindlin rarely failed to remind disputing parties
of their shortcomings.
The huge success of Judge Judy spawned competition.
In fact, a brief revival of The People’s Court
between 1998 and 1999 featured former New York
City mayor Ed Koch hamming it up at the gavel. Similarly,
Divorce Court, originally a 1960s show with
actors, reappeared with real couples ready to untie the knot on camera. Other shows, such as Judge
Mills Lane, covered the familiar territory of small
claims cases being tried by humorous grumps.
The 2000s breathed fresh air into the format with
African American judges and new thematic
approaches. Divorce Court and Judge Mathis featured
attorney Mablean Ephriam and former state
judge Greg Mathis, respectively. As a former teenage
dropout and gang member who became a Michigan
judge, Mathis promoted the theme of self-redemption
while citing his life as an example for young offenders.
Following their lead was noted former Georgia
juvenile court judge Glenda Hatchett, whose Judge
Hatchett also sought to balance entertainment with a
social message.
FURTHER READINGS
Frankel, Bruce. 2000. “Past Imperfect; In re jurisprudence, TV’s
Judge Mathis Had Two Good Teachers: Law School and
Jail.” People (October 2).
Holston, Noel. 1999. “Fall TV Preview.” Minneapolis Star Tribune
(September 13).
“Judge Glenda Hatchett Bio.” 2003. Available online at
(accessed on November 20, 2003).
“Judge Mills Lane TV Show Canceled.” 2001. AP Online (April
11).
Zurawik, David. 1999. “Tough Justice: TV Judges Deal in Black
and White.” Newsday (April 21): B3.
CROSS-REFERENCES
Small Claims Court; Television.