The judges who host courtroom actuality TV reveals have often been actual judges.
Decide Judy (Judy Sheindlin) was a Manhattan household court docket decide. Decide Joe Brown presided in Shelby County, Tennessee, Prison Courtroom. Decide Marilyn Milian (“The Folks’s Courtroom”) was a Florida circuit court docket decide.
The record of people that have presided over TV courts has grown lengthy and features a few former attorneys (like Jerry Springer and Religion Jenkins) who made the change. And nearly with out exception, they’re folks with respectable authorized backgrounds.
Final November, nonetheless, ABC stepped sideways when it introduced that its new entry into the courtroom reality-TV discipline can be hosted by a humorous and widespread TV character, Steve Harvey, who has no authorized expertise in any respect.
In actual fact, “Decide Steve Harvey”makes no claims on the contrary. As a substitute, ABC says, “Steve performs by his personal guidelines, basing his courtroom on his personal life experiences and a few good outdated widespread sense.”
‘It is a Totally different Type of Courtroom’
Harvey is a proficient performer finest referred to as a standup comedian and host of “Household Feud”for six years. He stated in interviews that he had the concept of internet hosting a court docket present for not less than 10 years and that ABC executives rapidly embraced the concept when he introduced it up throughout a Zoom assembly in 2020.
“It is a totally different form of court docket — a court docket of widespread sense,” Harvey says. “I’ve no legislation diploma. I technically don’t have any enterprise being a decide.”
So, does that imply Harvey and ABC are treading on skinny authorized ice right here?
Most likely not — as a result of TV “actuality courts” will not be actually courts.
Anybody who’s conversant in courtroom actuality TV will acknowledge the essential idea behind “Decide Steve Harvey.” The reveals on this class are known as “arbitration-based actuality court docket reveals,” and do not use actors or scripts or re-create situations. For essentially the most half, the authenticity does appear real, and that could be a large motive for the recognition of those reveals.
However to name them “courts” is a stretch. These are arbitrations of the sort that play out by the hundreds day by day within the U.S. as methods for folks to settle variations with out going to court docket. And arbitrators do not even have to be attorneys.
How TV Courtroom Exhibits Choose Instances
The producers of those reveals sometimes scour the dockets of small-claims courts searching for disputes that is likely to be good candidates for TV. (Instances involving private relationships, like when an ex-wife is suing an ex-husband, rank excessive.) Others, like “Decide Judy,” invite litigants to use by filling out a kind that asks for particulars in regards to the case, together with the court docket docket quantity.
The events sometimes signal a contract that offers the “decide” — the arbitrator — the facility to award cash. This is similar as when folks conform to arbitrate any dispute — they might not like the result, however they log off to just accept it.
Once they obtain a suggestion to seem on TV, many litigants understandably really feel stage fright and a concern of wanting silly. However the reveals provide inducements. One is that events sometimes obtain an look price of between $100 and $300 and compensation for journey prices. Moreover, reveals sometimes have their very own funds to pay awards to the successful events — which, like small claims courts, are often capped at $5,000 — making it extra doubtless that individuals who doubt their possibilities of success will take part.
“Decide Steve Harvey,” nonetheless, seems to be upping the ante. The present’s casting web site states that litigants will probably be paid $1,000 for showing on the present and will obtain awards of as much as $10,000 if Harvey guidelines of their favor.
Are Harvey’s Selections Binding?
The selections of TV judges are legally binding, similar to the choices of arbitrators.
However what about Harvey, the humorous man with no trace of a authorized background? Are his selections binding?
The reply is: in all probability. The events do signal a contract saying they are going to abide by the result. And so they make a couple of bucks, meet a star, and have a narrative they’ll inform their grandchildren.
Past that, although, ABC will not say conclusively how legally binding Harvey’s selections actually are. Additionally they appear to be cautious about what they’re calling it. It is a “comedy courtroom sequence,” not actuality court docket TV. It’s leisure at the beginning, and most reviewers of the just lately concluded first season say that Mr. Harvey delivered. In actual fact, ABC just lately introduced that “Decide Steve Harvey”will return for a second season.
Not that Harvey hasn’t confronted criticism for a few of his statements and antics following the sequence launch in January. Within the sequence’ second episode, Harvey laced right into a defendant who refused to marry his associate of 20 years and assist help their three kids, telling the person, “You are the stupidest dude I ever met.” ABC executives apparently weren’t pleased with the name-calling and recommended that Harvey tone issues down a bit.
Then once more, it is simply leisure. And moreover, Harvey’s not an actual decide.
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The judges in courtroom actuality TV reveals have often been actual judges. However comic/TV character Steve Harvey, who’s internet hosting the most recent entry within the discipline, has no authorized background in any respect. Is that authorized?
