Opinion: You can take the judge out of the Bronx...

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The case for television coverage of the Supreme Court is an easy one because only lawyers and justices are affected, not witnesses. It’s trickier to make the case for cameras in trial courts, but televised trials do have one advantage: They showcase the diversity of what H.L. Mencken called the American language.

Case in point: The Florida judge who presided -- and so much more -- at Thursday’s hearing over the disposition of Anna Nicole Smith’s remains. Forget about Broward Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin’s emotionalism; how about that Noo Yawk accent? He sounded so much like Mike Myers’ female alter ego that I expected him to ask the parties to discuss the case ‘amongt yourselves.’

Televised trials -- which were the staple of Court TV before Nancy Grace -- offer a many-leveled corrective to the way the judicial system is portrayed in movie and TV drama. In real trials, events do not move swiftly to a denouement and lawyers often stumble, repeat themselves and lose their train of thought.

Perhaps the biggest distortion in Hollywood’s depiction of trials is the diction of the presiding judges. Casting directors looking for a judicial presence usually choose deep-voiced actors with an impeccable mid-Atlantic accent. But real judges sound like other people from the communities where the judges live -- or, as in Judge Seidlin’s case, where they grew up

One TV series that gives us vernacular verisimilitude is ‘Law and Order,’ on which the judges -- including one played by the writer Fran Lebowitz -- often sound like honest-to-Gawd New Yorkers. If Fran is busy next season, Dick Wolf should call Judge Seidlin.