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Does Pop Culture Libel Law
And Lawyers?
by Lisa Trach
How often do we hear phrases
like, "He got a slap on the wrist", or "He
got off on a technicality"? How about jokes that start
off something like, "A doctor, an accountant, and a lawyer
walk into a bar…" where the punch line is about
the lawyer being dishonest, greedy, or disliked? It seems that
the current attitude of society is that the justice system is
really not that just, and the members of the legal community
are a questionable bunch. No system is perfect, and it is probably
fair to say that every member of the legal community can critique
some aspect of our justice system. These criticisms are based
on experience and knowledge that comes with being involved with
the system. However, on what is the average citizen basing his
or her opinions on how just our legal system is? The average
citizen has little or no contact with the justice system. Their
main source of information about how the legal system works and
what kind of people run the system comes from the media, movies,
T.V. programs, and other popular culture. It seems inevitable
that what they see will influence their attitudes about the system
and those involved in it. Is what they are seeing correct? Or
does popular culture bias the average citizen, leaving them with
unrealistic views of how our justice system functions? To answer
this, it is helpful to take a look at some of the popular culture
of the past and present, examine how it portrays the law and
lawyers, and attempt to evaluate its accuracy. Only then does
it become apparent how society's negative attitudes towards the
justice system can be attributed, at least in part, to popular
culture, and how those attitudes are unfair to a legal system
that is inaccurately portrayed.
One medium through which the legal system is portrayed is film.
Many movies embrace the law as their subject matter. A common
character is the lawyer. The stereotypical movie lawyer is untruthful,
uncaring, driven by greed, and in some cases, the villain. Recall
the main character in Liar Liar for example. His ability
to be a great lawyer is jeopardized when he loses his ability
to lie. The courtroom scene where he defends a cheating wife
in her divorce proceedings is a complete disaster because he
can not lie and his entire defense is based on lies. Jim Carey's
character in Liar Liar is also disliked outside of his
law office. He is divorced and neglects his duties as a father.
What is the message here? Lawyers are liars, and bad people.
We see this theme reoccurring again and again. In the most recent
version of Cape Fear, the main character, Sam Bowden,
is a lawyer. He is supposed to be the protagonist, but it is
difficult to really like him. After all, he cheated on his wife
and caused her to have a nervous breakdown. He also acted unethically
in defending a past client by not doing everything possible in
his defense. Then we have The Devil's Advocate. In this
film the successful head partner of a prestigious law firm turns
out to be the devil. Need more be said? How about Michelle Pfeiffer's
character, Rita, in I Am Sam? When she is a lawyer with
a successful practice, she neglects her son, is rude, won't do
any pro bono lawyering, makes her secretary cry, and avoids her
husband. Later in the film, when she announces that she has essentially
given up her busy practice, she is portrayed as the caring friend,
great mother, and all-around nice gal. How does a lawyer get
to be a nice person? According to the movies, they have to quit
being a lawyer.
A closer look at lawyers exposes the common movie depiction as
false. Law students are taught the ethics of their trade from
the very beginning of their career and making only those representations
that are known to be true is one of the most important of those
ethical obligations. The legal community is a relatively small
one. Therefore, the actions of each lawyer are constantly scrutinized
by their peers. One's reputation within the legal community is
easily tarnished by deceitfulness. A lawyer can quickly lose
the respect of other members of the legal community by misleading.
Do some lawyers lie? The answer is most likely, "Yes".
Nevertheless, making the generalization that all lawyers are
liars is unrealistic. The legal profession is one that demands
integrity, and most lawyers take that very seriously. The idea
that lawyers are driven by greed, and that successful lawyers
don't do pro bono or charity work is also false. Some examples
serve to defeat this assumption. In British Columbia, the Salvation
Army runs a Pro Bono program that provides free legal services
to those who do not qualify for legal aid. In 1999, nearly 170
lawyers donated their time and services to this program. Similarly,
one of the most successful and respected criminal lawyers in
Edmonton, Alberta, was recently ranked third on the list of lawyers
who do the most legal aid work in Alberta. Clearly this is not
motivated by greed, as legal aid is not as lucrative as regular
practice. Even during the most demanding times in their career,
lawyers find time to donate their services. Crossroads, a program
in Edmonton, Alberta that sends outreach workers into the inner
city, benefits from the volunteered time of a young associate.
This young lawyer joins the outreach worker in the Crossroads
van, traveling the streets during late night shifts, encouraging
safety and providing legal information to Edmonton's prostitution
community. She did so throughout her busy articling year and
continues to be a volunteer with the organization. Is this work
of people who can be equated with the devil? The depiction of
lawyers in the movies leads the public to see the entire community
as having little compassion and no character. However, these
lawyers, among many others prove that this portrayal is unfair,
leaving lawyers to battle a stereotype that in many cases is
totally inaccurate.
It is not just the portrayal of the lawyer in movies that is
disturbing. Movies often depict the entire legal system as unfair
and corrupt. For example, in I Am Sam, the viewer is put
into Sam's shoes and takes his side. Sam is shown as a loving
father that has his child taken away from him because he is mentally
challenged. To the viewer, the legal system seems cruel because
it takes Lucy from Sam, even though he has raised her for 7 years
and she is very bright and well adjusted. The district attorney,
judge, and social worker, all working on behalf of the legal
system, are portrayed as heartless, wanting to take her away
from her true father without really caring about what Lucy wants.
The viewer is outraged at the system for taking a young girl
away from her father when he clearly loves her dearly. Who cares
if he is disabled? After all, as Lucy says, "All you
need is love".
A realistic look at the situation reveals that the movie's version
of the legal system is deceiving and unduly harsh. It is not
cruel that our system inquires into the ability of a severely
disabled parent to care for a child. In fact, it seems that a
system that did not make this inquiry would be negligent in caring
for the youth of its jurisdiction. Lucy's comment about only
needing love is very sweet, but oversimplifies things enormously.
A report done by the New York State Commission of Quality of
Care outlined some of the problems facing parents with mental
disabilities. The study profiled 41 families in detail. "In
general, it was found intellectually challenged parents had low
self esteem; they resisted help from the outside for fear of
losing their children; almost half of the parents in the study
had faced at least one allegation of child abuse or neglect.
Twenty-five percent of the children failed to receive adequate
medical, dental care and nutrition. And nearly two thirds of
the children over the age of three had an identified learning
disability, believed to be as a result of not getting enough
stimulation in their early formative years."(1)
This does not necessarily mean that a disabled parent can not
be a good parent. This study simply indicates that it is fair
that our legal system look into a mentally challenged parent's
abilities to insure the child is getting the necessary care.
The system must put the best interest of the child in front of
any other factor. This is just one example of how movies can
distort the goals of the legal system and deceive the general
public. A depiction such as the one in I Am Sam that ridicules
the legal system and is effective in persuading the viewer that
the system is unjust for making such an inquiry is ludicrous.
Yet these types of depictions occur in movies quite frequently.
Movies are not the only form of popular culture that influences
the beliefs of people about the legal system and community. Television
is perhaps even more invasive and persuasive to the general public.
Shows such as Law and Order, The Practice, and
Matlock definitely have an influence on how the public
imagines the justice system to be. However, their accuracy leaves
much to be desired. Although they may deal with issues that are
current in the real-life legal community, they do so in a way
that biases the viewer. For example, Law and Order shows
each of its cases from the point of view of the police and the
prosecution. Defense counsel is made to look like the villain,
siding with the guilty and trying anything to get them off. Meanwhile,
the prosecutors are made out to be heroes, who usually are seeking
a result that popular opinion at the time would support. This
leaves the viewer with the impression that the legal system is
a battle between the "good guys" and the "bad
guys" where the only just result is when the "good
guys" prevail. These television programs also fail to represent
the workings of the system accurately. In Matlock, we always
see Ben get up and lay out the "truth" in front of
the jury while he is supposed to be cross-examining the witness.
This type of monologue would never happen in a courtroom during
a cross examination. The rules of evidence forbid it. Sadly,
the public is influenced by this type of programming and will
often refer to things seen on these shows when discussing their
attitudes towards the justice system.
Perhaps the most frightening medium through which people's attitudes
about the justice system are prejudiced is the media. This is
because people consider the media to be based on fact, whereas
they know there is some element of fiction to television and
movies. However, the media can also paint misleading pictures
of justice and the system. Even the wording of a newspaper headline
can bias the public, causing them to expect a certain result
and become dissatisfied with the system when their expectations
are not met. Take, for example, headlines such as "Biggest
Reward for Slayer" and "Boy Must Face Higher
Court in Slaying". The fact that the words "slayer"
and "slaying" are used invokes public emotion. The
articles following these headlines paint a very one-sided picture,
and could easily convince the public of the boy's involvement
in the crime. If the boy were not convicted, the public may react.
Even more devastating is the reality of what happened in the
case described in these headlines. Biased views as to his guilt
caused this boy, at only age 14, to be convicted of murder of
a young girl and initially sentenced to death. This young boy's
name was Steven Truscott. His death sentence was commuted and
he ended up serving ten years in jail before he was paroled.
He then spent thirty years living under a new identity, until
his story resurfaced. It is now believed that Steven was wrongfully
convicted. This is only one of many cases where the public has
believed a person to be guilty and called out to the justice
system to convict, later learning that the person was innocent.
Still, with several cases where DNA evidence has identified wrongfully
convicted individuals, the public continues to think that the
system is too kind. Many seem happier with a wrongful conviction
than an acquittal, although the latter means that the learned
members of the legal community could not be sure of guilt. Media
coverage skewing the facts can make the system look overly lenient
instead of vitally cautious.
There may be motives as to why the legal system is portrayed
as it is in popular culture. Regarding the media, the motive
is obvious. Who wants to read about the fifty guilty pleas that
occurred in courtroom #268 today? On the other hand, a sensationalized
article on the murder and rape of a young girl by a young boy
draws attention. In a way, movies and television have the same
goal. In his article, Peace Between the Sexes: Law and Gender
in Kramer vs. Kramer, David Papke suggests another motive
of popular culture's portrayal of the law. He concedes that television
and movies are filled with legal inaccuracies, but claims that
they "are not mistakes, much less attempts to dupe the
lay public."(2) Papke makes the argument
that the law is often an appropriate forum to play out an issue
that is culturally relevant at the time. In Kramer vs. Kramer,
this issue is gender inequality. Although, as Papke points out,
the courts no longer relied on gender to decide custody battles,
gender was still a topic on the minds of the public in the 1980's,
when the movie was released. Using it in such an inaccurate way
in Kramer vs. Kramer just makes obvious the irrelevance
of gender to so many issues traditionally based on gender. Although
Papke's theory makes sense, what he seems to avoid is the fact
that the public may be getting duped, despite the intentions
of producers, screenwriters, and journalists. Although popular
culture may have motives other than destroying the public's confidence
in the justice system, it often is doing just that.
In his book Getting Away With Murder: The Canadian Criminal
Justice System, David Paciocco seems to suggest that the
lack of confidence in the justice system is due to the fact that
the public is uninformed. He states, on pages 11-12, "We
would go a long way towards restoring the credibility of the
administration justice if only we would seek to explain the system
to the general public." Not only are the public uninformed.
They are also misinformed. Popular culture gives the public an
unrealistic view of how the legal system works. It portrays the
person who gets off on a technicality, but fails to mention the
other hundred people who pleaded guilty, which is a very common
occurrence in our courts today. Television, movies, and the media
often cause the system to seem cold and unfair. However, our
justice system is one that protects the rights of all members
of society. The "technicalities" in popular culture
are, in reality safeguards against state power. When one takes
an informed look at the way popular culture characterizes the
justice system, it becomes evident that there are misrepresentations
and inaccuracies that lead to bias. Therefore, although entertaining,
information about the justice system in popular culture should
be accepted with skepticism, and judgments upon the system and
the legal community should be left to the truly informed citizen.
1. Is
Love Enough?
2. Peace
Between the Sexes: Law and Gender in Kramer vs. Kramer, University
of San Francisco Law Review, Vol. 30, p. 1201.
Posted December 11, 2003
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