ICYMI: Shniderman on Ripped From the Headlines: Juror Perceptions in the Law & Order Era @adam_shniderman

ICYMI: Adam B. Shniderman, University of Michigan Law School, has published Ripped from the Headlines: Juror Perceptions in the Law & Order Era at 38 Law & Psychology Review 97 (2014). Here is the abstract.

Film and Media Studies scholars have long claimed that television is a primary source of information about the criminal justice system for most Americans. These scholars have also found that television can significantly impact viewer’s perceptions of the world. In the last decade, Jerry Bruckheimer’s CSI: Crime Scene Investigation has been the subject of significant scrutiny. Many have claimed that CSI’s highly dramatized, romanticized, and generally unrealistic portrayal of forensic science and the investigative process has significantly altered juror expectations and poses a challenge for lawyers trying criminal cases. The concept has been discussed in nearly 400 news articles and more than 100 academic journal articles. With all of this attention paid to CSI, the impact of Law & Order on jurors’ perceptions of the criminal justice system has been largely overlooked.
In this Article, I analyze the dominant narrative in the Law & Order franchise, demonstrating that the show is rooted in Packer’s Crime Control Model. This Article discusses the various techniques the Law & Order franchise employs to construct that narrative and shape our views, through the use of basic psychological principles, detailed character backstories, casting choices of various characters, and dialogue and specific plot events. This Article considers the potential impact of this narrative on peoples’/jurors’ perceptions of various aspects of criminal investigations and the justice system, including interrogation techniques, eyewitness identification and lineup procedures, and the presumption of innocence. Finally, this Article makes suggestions for future research.

Download the article from SSRN at the link. 

"Till the One Day When the Lady Met This Fellow" @Slate @craigtimes

Craig Pittman floats a theory explaining exactly how they "all became the Brady Bunch," here for Slate. It's straight out of Strangers on a Train. Exactly when was that one day when Mike and Carol first met? Is Alice an accomplice? And what, if anything, do the children know? Calling the Law & Order folks.

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha."

[Do we need an "It's a joke, folks" alert?]

Teaching Law With Television: The Case of Law & Order

ICYMI:

Kenneth D. Agran's Investigative Criminal Procedure: A Law &; Order Casebook (West Academic Publishing (2017). Here's a description of the book's contents.

This innovative and groundbreaking book includes access to 12 complete episodes of the popular television show LAW & ORDER that vividly and accurately depict various aspects of Investigative Criminal Procedure. Instructors may request a complimentary copy of the book that provides access to the companion eBook, which seamlessly incorporates scenes from the show, excerpts from over 200 U.S. Supreme Court opinions, and "black box" summaries of the law to clarify the constitutional rules binding upon law enforcement during the investigation of crimes. In particular, the book comprehensively covers the constitutional rules governing searches and seizures, the limitations on police questioning and interrogation practices, and the doctrines regulating police identification procedures. A Teacher's Manual includes valuable teaching tips, coverage suggestions for courses of various lengths, detailed notes and summaries for each case, and classroom-tested exercises that, along with the LAW & ORDER segments, will improve students' engagement and enhance their understanding of the core concepts in Investigative Criminal Procedure. West Academic is proud to have worked with NBCUniversal to bring this one-of-a-kind textbook to the market.

Professor Agran notes that part of his inspiration comes from his law school experiences in a 1994 course taught by Charles Nesson. Certainly what he describes is new and different. And his own book is both clever and innovative. But I would point out that (ahem) some people have pointed the way, even before 1994. I tried to interest another legal publisher in this same idea back then. I still remember the name of the publisher's rep who failed to respond to my inquiries about a law and television casebook approach to teaching after encouraging me to lay out a detailed plan. Sigh.

Sood and Trielli @DanielTrielli on the Representation of Race, Gender, and Crime on the Television Series Law & Order

Gaurav Sood and Daniel Trielli, both independent scholars, have published The Face of Crime in Prime Time: Evidence from Law and Order. Here is the abstract.

Race, gender, and crime are inextricably linked in people's minds. And television programming is thought to strongly influence how they are linked. We investigate the extent to which popular television programming perpetuates stereotypical linkages by tallying the race and gender of criminals and victims in three popular series of the most successful criminal procedural franchise on television --- Law & Order. Using data from a census of the shows from aired seasons of Special Victims Unit and Criminal Intent series, and data from seven seasons of the Original series, we find that whites and women are overrepresented (and blacks and men underrepresented), both as victims and as criminals. In particular, blacks are dramatically underrepresented both as criminals and as victims, with actual arrest rate and violent victimization rate of blacks nearly 300% and 200% respectively of the commensurate numbers for the show.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

The BigLaw Firm, Branding, and Television

Jordan Furlong, Edge International, muses on the links between Law & Order (as delivered by Big TV) and, well, law and order (as delivered by Big Law). More here from his post at Bloomberg Law's Legal Communities BigLaw Business Blog.

Mr. Furlong begins:

“In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups….” Recognize that line? Of course you do. Law & Order was appointment viewing for an entire generation of lawyers and law students in the 1990s...Unlike other shows, which suffered when popular leads departed, L&O thrived throughout its personnel turnovers, mostly because the show adhered rigorously to its formula, structure, sound (“Dun-Dun!”) and style...The attraction of a machine that operates effectively regardless of who’s pushing the buttons is obvious, especially in industries with tight margins and expensive talent. You can even find examples of this approach in professional services....Think about it: When was the last time you heard a CEO say, “I hire the accountant, not the firm”? The major accounting firms firms sell their brand, their operations, their systems — their machinery....That’s not the case, obviously, for law firms, where the brand of the individual lawyer traditionally has trumped the shingle of the firm under which he or she happens to practice at the moment. Consider, then, how attractive law firm leaders would find a firm whose brand, operations, systems — whose machinery — trumps that of its individual lawyers. Consider a “lawyer-proof” law firm....