What are you, Team Amber or Team Johnny? I can’t say, as I’ve not paid any attention whatsoever to the goings-on.
However, I have some thoughts about the length of the trial.
Back in my reporter days, I covered a handful of murder trials. I suspect none of them garnered headlines outside our area. No celebrities, not even any local heroes. (There was one man convicted of murder who was in a wheelchair, having lost his legs several years earlier; that might have gotten some attention somewhere.)
Here’s the thing.
These murder trials – involving punishing someone for causing the death of another human, involving the question of putting someone in prison for maybe the rest of his life, involving the most basic offenses of humanity – were all conducted and wrapped up in a matter of days. As I recall, only one extended into the second week and lasted only one or two days more.
Yes, almost all of the murder trials were conducted within four or five days.
Meanwhile, this celebrity civil trial is entering its sixth week.
Why?
Because defamation is more complicated than murder? More heinous?
Because rich people are more deserving of a carefully considered verdict?
Or maybe because they make “better television”?
I don’t know, but I am confident our judicial system is being misused, if not outright abused.
One more thing
Why do judges wear black robes? According to classroomlaw.org:
“Upon the founding of the United States, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson disagreed on the attire judges should wear. Adams wanted judges to wear red robes and wigs as English judges did. Jefferson wanted judges to simply wear suits. A compromise between these two points of view was reached in which Adams and Jefferson agreed that judges in the United States would wear black robes without the wigs.”
Steve Martaindale 