Law and Order: The Impact of Crime Dramas on Real Juries

What is your opinion? Do television shows, such as "Law and Order-S.V.U.," influence how "real people" view our criminal justice system? I believe they do and here's why.

Most people rarely have any contact with the courts, police, or lawyers. Therefore, when they occasionally must interact with "the system," they must draw upon the impressions which they have formed about cops or lawyers from television, or the movies. I also believe that true crime trial dramas, beginning with the televised O.J. Simpson murder case, (coupled with fictitious t.v. crime dramas), have also had a profound impact on what jurors expect when they are selected to serve on juries. For instance, in my experience, both as a prosecutor and a criminal defense lawyer, jurors chosen in criminal cases expect to be entertained with "C.S.I." caliber scientific evidence, just like they have seen on t.v.

Don't you agree? If you regularly watch "Law and Order-S.V.U.," don't you expect real criminal investigators to solve crimes just like the character portrayed by award-winning actor Marisa Hargitay? Of course, at least in real jury trials, there are no interruptions for commercials!

Two Former Bear Stearns Hedge Fund Managers Acquitted

Did you hear the news yesterday about two former Bear Stearns hedge-fund managers getting acquitted by a jury following a month-long jury trial in federal court in New York on fraud and conspiracy charges? The two men, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, had been accused by the government of misleading investors, prior to the collapse of the subprime mortgage market last year. But the jury quickly found them not guilty.

In my opinion, this case illustrates my point that I have made earlier in this blog that, as experienced criminal defense attorneys know, the best criminal defense is to admit the act but deny the intent. The case also illustrates the point that, in white collar criminal cases, sometimes federal prosecutors bite off more than they can chew! Apparently the only thing these two men were guilty of was not having a crystal ball to predict the market collapse.

In this case, government prosecutors also apparently inflated the significance of emails between the defendants in which they allegedly expressed more pessimism about the market than in their conversations with investors. The bottom line is that jurors reportedly decided not to blame the unanticipated collapse of the market last year on these two defendants! While we all may be upset about Wall Street greed and the market collapse, it is good to see that fair-minded jurors could avoid creating scapegoats and render a fair verdict in this case.