Watching an actual trial different from on TV

<i>College 301</i> column

By ROBERT RICH

AUSTIN — It’s amazing how dramatic things look with a soundtrack, several different camera angles and a script to work from. For instance, jury trials. The defendant enters the room and stares with his or her best look of remorse at the judge and jury, all the while a light piano melody floating in the background. The trial starts and as the Prosecutor presents the evidence, she shows a picture of a dead body, the person the defendant allegedly killed.

But we don’t see all of the picture, only half of it with the gory parts obscured by a witness or attorney. The camera pans to the gallery and the family of the victim breaking down, all in slow motion, that same piano melody weaving its way throughout the sobs and sniffles.

That’s not how it happens. The most recent story I had to write for my journalism class was a court story, meaning I had to find a trial happening within the short window of time I had for the assignment, and attend a full day of it, afterwards writing a story over the happenings. I was able to come across a fairly big murder case and after familiarizing myself with the circumstances of the trial, I went to the opening day.

For background purposes, here’s the scoop on what happened: an Austin man was in the process of beginning a divorce with his wife, but it was getting pretty ugly as he didn’t want her to have his possessions. One day, the man tells his son (who lives with him) that he’s going to go and kill his mother. The man leaves, drives to his wife’s house and does just that, shooting her twice, the second bullet being a fatal one through the head. He leaves the wife on the porch of her trailer and drives back to his house, where he tells his son that he just shot his mother. The man calls 9-1-1 and reports the incident, admitting that he did the shooting. He’s taken into custody.

Of course, he talked to a lawyer, which resulted in the trial happening. For some reason, the man believed he could get off and pled not guilty. Good luck with that buddy.

Anyway, that’s not the purpose of this column, although I could spend a great deal of time talking about why in the world people do such heinous things and then have the audacity to say they didn’t, even when there’s a 9-1-1 recording of them admitting the action, AND there’s a ton of evidence to support it.

But no, what struck me the most was the differences between actual trials and the ones you see on television and the silver screen.

This doesn’t come as a huge surprise to me, as I most certainly figured that there would be an enormous amount of differences seeing as how things just don’t happen like they do in the movies. The most noticeable change is the complete lack of drama. You just don’t realize how much you take for granted that soundtrack and plethora of camera angles until you’re stuck in the gallery, struggling to hear what people are saying and just wishing there was some little acoustic guitar picking going on to keep things interesting. Likewise, court cases are not done in the two hours that they receive treatment for in films. Those boring moments aren’t cut out in real life.

When the attorneys have to approach the bench, the five minute conversation results in a five minute silence for you, because you can’t hear what they’re saying.

Another huge thing that struck me was the dialogue. The terminology was the same as you hear on TV, as court lingo is pretty standardized. But the talk of the attorneys and the exchanges between them and the judge are not the quick-witted rapidfire conversations you’re used to. In fact, there’s a ton of pauses and struggling for words. That’s just real life, but it’s a heck of a lot different than TV attorneys, who know exactly what to say and when to say it.

In real life, every other word is “umm” and it goes to show just how correct all of my teachers have been in saying that “umm” that sounds unprofessional. I definitely didn’t expect to hear it coming out of the mouths of lawyers.

But aside from those big differences, most of the rest is actually pretty accurate to what you see on the screen or read in John Grisham novels. There’s a lot of objections thrown around, the jurors seem bored half of the time, and it’s absolutely heartbreaking if the family of a victim is in the courtroom when a picture of the deceased is shown. Our judicial system really is fascinating and I encourage all of you to witness an actual trial if you can. And remember, watching Law & Order doesn’t really count.

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Robert Rich is a junior journalism major at the University of Texas at Austin. He graduated from Westwood High School in 2006. He can be reached via e-mail at robert.rich@mail.utexas.edu