Want Social Condemnation With Your Justice? Tune in Judge Judy

[Vitruvius]

By ADAM COHEN

<SNIP> "Judge Judy" seems like a caricature of judging, more concerned with putting litigants in their place than with weighing evidence and legal doctrine. But many legal sociologists would argue that putting people in their place - or exerting "social control" - is to some degree what law is all about. Few real-life judges refer to litigants, as Judge Judy does, as "you idiot," inform them bluntly "there is something wrong with you," or end a legal proceeding by telling one of the parties that it would be a bad idea for her to have children. But the reason Judge Judy's show resonates so strongly is that she has an uncanny ability to act out justice-as-social-control in its rawest form.

It has been widely accepted, as early as the legal realism movement of the 1920's, that law is about a lot more than just the neutral application of rules to facts. In an influential 1976 book, "The Behavior of Law," Donald Black, a University of Virginia social sciences professor, argued that much of what occurs in the legal system can be explained by the relative social status of the participants. One of the universal truths he has observed is that law moves more easily down social hierarchies than up. It is far easier for a rich man to get a policeman to arrest a poor man in the street, for example, than the other way around.

Professor Black also contends that certain kinds of people "attract" law to themselves. The poor, the culturally marginal and social deviants of all types are more likely to attract bad legal outcomes - to be arrested, to be convicted, to lose civil lawsuits - when they do the same things as more socially favored people. In a typical piece of Blackian fieldwork, researchers in the early 1970's sent two groups into a store to shoplift, some dressed as "hippies," with long hair and dirty blue jeans, and others who looked more conventional. Not surprisingly, customers in the store turned the hippies in far more often than the "straights," and with much more enthusiasm.

In an interview, Professor Black could not recall having seen "Judge Judy," which is a shame, since it is the perfect text for his theories. He has written that judges are at their most unforgiving when there is a large gap in social status between them and the parties who appear before them. Judge Judy is able to carry on the way she does because her litigants almost invariably have a multitude of low-status markers: they are unemployed, they have criminal records, they speak poorly. It would be a completely different show if the parties were wealthy. As things stand now, the lower a party's apparent status, the harsher Judge Judy is free to be. On a recent show, when a witness opened her mouth to reveal missing front teeth, it was all but inevitable that she would be yelled at to sit back down and say nothing. <SNIP>

It is hardly surprising that "Judge Judy" is so popular. People like to see social hierarchies reinforced, and people who violate social norms "taught responsibility" or otherwise punished. Humiliation is also a traditional crowd pleaser, and an important part of virtually every reality show on television. The real problem with "Judge Judy" is not that it is worse than most reality TV, which it is not. It is that for an audience that runs well into the millions every week, it is blurring the line between justice and social bullying.

More at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/09/opinion/09sun3.html

In Rethugnican-dominated America, it's all 'who you are' and 'who you know', in life, on the job, and in the so-called legal system... And everything's run by half-wit Rethugnican bullies, from the Bu$h administration to big business to the legal system...

[skooooo]

1. " It is that for an audience that runs well into the millions every week,"

If it's social bullying to tell people to start using birth control so that they don't have more kids with different partners WHEN THEY COME INTO COURT for stupid reasons, and are looking for compensation for their own stupidity, then bully away.

Same goes for dead beat fathers, mothers, and people who seem to be unable to exercise any common sense whatsoever.

[donsu]

2. there are certain kinds of people you know Judy will not like

Judy has her own personal agenda.

and I don't always agree with her judgements.

but when she tells an idiot that they are idiots it's most grand.

she is stuck on women should be married before having children. and has no regard for women who don't believe in or want to be married.

the law is tipped toward married women with children and away from unmarried women with children and Judy follows the law.

it's mean of her to dress down unmarried women with children.

[undergroundpanther]

3. I wish I could call her a bully to her sanctimonious face

when she humiliates poor people. I don't care if she thinks TV land is her "courteroom"and I'd ask judy what's up with that lacy collar on your robe? Tad too tacky victorian?

[skooooo]

5. I would augment what you say...

....about women who "should be married." What I hear when I watch her show is that the law is based upon contracts. Marriage is a contract with certain legal implications. If a woman (or a man) comes in to collect money because of a failed relationship (ie. getting back "her stuff", ect.), Judy would say that those people are not protected in the same way. And it's true. Right or wrong that's how the law is set up. So, don't get into financial arrangements with your true love and expect the law to come bail you out when things go wrong.

[Vitruvius]

4. The big problem is our 'who-you-are' legal system, not Judge Judy;

she's just an echo who's found a way to make a ton of money catering to the same unlovely prejudices that the legal system caters to.

With our legal system, a rich spoiled brat can desert in time of war with no penalties, use cocaine and get community service (and no criminal record), lose an election, and the judicial system (the USSC) will make him President.

A poor person who deserted would end up in a military prison. And - in my state (NY) - we have poor women serving life sentences under the Rockefeller drug laws for being a passenger in someone else's car when the cops found some small amount of drugs.

It's all who you are. And Judge Judy is popular because there are a lot of Americans who like it that way, who like seeing poor people stomped into the mud, and who want to see it on TV as well as in the courts.

[skooooo]

6. No one has to go on the show who doesn't want to...

...and besides, it's small claims court.