JUDGES; TOTAL CONTEMPT

Image by Eugenio Hansen, OFS

In the UK, on 21 March 2010, in the News of the World, we read that the rent boy judge still gets £2,500 a week

Judge Gerald Price QC allegedly had a relationship with a £250- a-night rent boy.

Reportedly, the judge let the rent boy sit on the bench with him, during court trials.

An inquiry was begun.

Nine months later the inquiry remains "ongoing".

The judge is still receiving his salary.

"Defrauding America" by Rodney Stich details evidence of corrupt judges in the USA. (Rodney Stich: Defrauding America)

A woman judge 'ran a sex ring that killed a boy aged five'

Melchior Wathelet was the top judge who released Marc Dutroux from prison in 1991.

Wathelet was Belgium's judge at the European Court of Justice. (MADELEINE AND DUTROUX LINKS TO GHENT, KORTRIJK AND BRUGES)

"According to a police document from the Dutroux enquiry, obtained by The Sprout, serious allegations about Wathelet’s involvement in paedophilia came to light." (Werkgroep Morkhoven)

According to his ex-wife, a judge gave a child a sexually transmitted disease, viewed child pornography websites and misused transcripts from child abuse cases that he had presided over. (Child abuse cover-up allegations over top policeman who quit ...)

Former policeman Lenny Harper claims that the island of Jersey’s Attorney-General, William Bailhache, and his office are held in 'total contempt' by victims of child abuse after repeatedly failing to bring offenders to justice. (JERSEY CHILD ABUSE COVER UP; VICTIM SENTENCED)

A little girl called Alicia Owen gave evidence in the Franklin child abuse scandal.

(Reportedly, the Omaha police chief, Robert Wadman, had got her pregnant -Alicia Owen’s brother. Her brother was murdered.)

She named top politicians.

A judge sentenced her to 27 years in jail for perjury. (BOYS TOWN AND THE POPE)

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Pop Culture Supreme Court: TV Judges

The Pop Culture Supreme Court is reconvening after a lengthy prorogation to deliberate on an emergency case brought forward by CBC Radio's Definitely Not the Opera. A producer on the show approached our Chief Justice, Matthew Caverhill of culture kills, with a request for a ruling on judicial reality shows.

Case: Given the fact that syndicated reality programming grossly distorts the perception the average viewer has of the law and its practice, should there be a moratorium on the use of the words Judge and/or Court in the titles of these types of programs?

There has indeed been a proliferation of shows placing small-time litigants in front of cameras and court at the same time. A quick look through IMDB shows that 11 have aired since 2000, seven of them appearing since 2006. The judges can be coarse, pompous and condescending; the defendants shallow, petty, bitter and conniving. In other words, the perfect reality-show contestants.

If viewers are coming away from these shows with a distorted view of court proceedings and how the legal system works, they are also likely to believe that they can dance, audition for a singing career and survive on an island for 39 days. Judicial reality shows should shoulder no more blame for people's legal misconceptions than Grey's Anatomy does for perceptions of medical residents or Heroes for people's opinions of gene therapy.

In any case, legal reality shows are hardly a 21st century phenomenon. TV viewers in 1949 saw both Famous Jury Trials and Your Witness, while six court shows aired between 1957-1959, including Divorce Court and People’s Court of Small Claims. What goes around, comes around, it seems. In 1981, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joseph Wapner kick started the modern version by adjudicating actual cases in simulated courtroom settings.

In short, anyone who believes what they see in a reality-based court show might as well search out attorney Lionel Hutz at I Can't Believe It's A Law Firm before their next court date. Legal knowledge is the least of their worries. I rule against a moratorium.