Trials and Errors : In staging courtroom dramas, Hollywood has often been guilty of bending the truth. But a public educated by the O.J. Simpson trial may expect a new code of conduct from writers and directors.

A brutal murder--a stabbing--sends shock waves through the city. A trail of physical evidence--including bloody footprints--ties the accused to the crime. A publicity-seeking attorney--known for defending guilty clients--abuses the system to secure an acquittal. A female prosecutor--selected because of her sex--fights both the defense and her own office. Sound familiar?

It’s Paramount Pictures’ “Primal Fear,” which opened April 3, starring Richard Gere as the defense attorney, Laura Linney as the D.A. and newcomer Edward Norton as the defendant. Yet while the movie bears some superficial resemblance to the trial of O.J. Simpson, it’s not really about race, celebrity, money, spousal abuse or even the criminal justice system. It’s about arrogance and betrayal. But that may not matter to veteran Simpson watchers. They’re going to be paying close attention to the courtroom proceedings to see if the movie is accurate. Or will they?

Filmmakers have seldom been realistic when it comes to trials, and the public has seldom, if ever, held them accountable. It’s not surprising, then, that opinion is divided over whether filmmakers will have to take the Simpson case into account from now on when they enter the courtroom. Certainly there is heightened awareness in Hollywood: Simpson prosecutor Christopher Darden’s best-selling book, “In Contempt,” has been optioned and studio execs are lining up to discuss it with him. And the title of the newest John Grisham property circulating in Hollywood offers a wry commentary on the continuing Simpson obsession: It’s called “The Runaway Jury,” about the widow of a lung cancer victim suing a tobacco company.

“The short answer is: yes,” says “Primal Fear” director Gregory Hoblit (“Hill Street Blues,” “L.A. Law,” “NYPD Blue”), when asked if the trial would have an impact on Hollywood.

“I’m writing a courtroom novel told from the point of view of the judge,” says novelist Scott Turow (“Presumed Innocent”). “I was working on a scene involving a sidebar and I thought to myself, ‘No need to explain what that is.’ For a writer like me who depends on fairly factual premises, you have an audience that’s much more sophisticated. On the other hand, it’s harder to entertain them because they’ve been there and done that. Who’s ever going to beat Laura McKinny’s tapes?”

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But that, some observers insist, is not the point. Audiences may now know what a sidebar is without really understanding the system itself. And the Simpson trial did nothing to educate the public about that.

Peter Arenella, a professor of law at UCLA and commentator on the trial, says: “I would be surprised if movies’ portrayal of the system did change dramatically, partially because we have so many myths about the criminal justice system that the Simpson trial didn’t change but in some weird ways reinforced--that people get off on technicalities, that the system is incapable of detecting the truth. The slimy, unethical defense lawyers getting the guilty client off. I’m not convinced that there’s going to be a major impact apart from screenwriters who have a better understanding of the procedural niceties of the system.”

Turow disputes this.

“I thought in some ways the Simpson trial was a good education in the milieu of the courtroom. You had a classic confrontation between police and the defense. You had a witness exposed as a liar. You had incredible bad feeling between the prosecution and the defense. You had a judge sort of wrestling to keep them at arm’s length. I think a lot of it was an appropriate education. What was inappropriate was the length of the trial and the fact that as a result it was frequently incredibly boring.”

And even if the trial did perpetuate stereotypes, UCLA law professor Michael Asimow says, “There is often a grain of truth in them. In the litigation process, whether it’s a criminal process or a civil process, people are out to win. They will push whatever the ethical limits are to get that result if the client can afford to pay for it. And that’s what you saw in the O.J. case.”

Director Jon Avnet, who, with Jersey Films, has purchased Turow’s latest book, “Laws of Our Fathers,” sees other lessons in the Simpson trial, although he’s not sure how they will apply to his adaptation of “Laws.”

“It is not something people grow up understanding, that truth is so harshly manipulated,” he says. “Admissibility and truth are two different concepts under the law. A lot of people wondered why a guy who’s fleeing with a gun to his head, why that information wasn’t admitted at the trial. There are so many questions raised, the impact is enormous.”

A number of people view the trial less as a sober exercise in civic enlightenment than as farce, although again they’re divided over whether this is beneficial.

“People are still outraged,” says writer Dominick Dunne, who covered the trial for Vanity Fair. “I think that they have truly begun to understand the legal system. I never thought of this before, but I suppose it’s going to bring about a change [on screen].”

Joel Schumacher, who directed Grisham’s “The Client” and “A Time to Kill,” due out in August, sees it differently. “I think that after the O.J. trial you can do anything in a movie and people will believe it. People know that it’s all outrageous.”

Then there’s the theory that audiences will believe anything, no matter how outlandish.

“Hollywood never has yet worried about sophisticated audiences,” says cop-turned-author Joseph Wambaugh (“The Onion Field”). “Matter of fact, Hollywood operates on the premise that there’s no such thing as a sophisticated audience. That’s why the movies are all crap.”

Certainly Hollywood doesn’t have a distinguished track record when it comes to courtroom movies, especially recently (see accompanying story).

According to Asimow, who, along with fellow UCLA professor Paul Bergman, has written a book about the subject (“Reel Justice: The Courtroom Goes to the Movies”), “There was definitely a period during the ‘50s and ‘60s where a series of terrific trial pictures got made, such as ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ In many of the recent ones, ‘Jagged Edge’ being a good example, the writers are much more interested in dramatic effect and sexual conflicts rather than trying to do a down-the-middle murder trial.”

He says that movie makers routinely disregard fundamental judicial concepts. “What strikes us as clearly objectionable hearsay gets in,” Asimow says. “Other times people object to evidence as hearsay even though it clearly falls within the exception. And we tried to talk about what circumstantial evidence is and why there’s nothing wrong with it. People always say it’s just a bunch of circumstantial evidence, but circumstantial evidence can be excellent evidence.”

Asimow also objects to lawyers speechifying in court. “In ‘Philadelphia,’ for example, Denzel Washington just gives speeches right in the middle of the trial. Well, you don’t do that. You examine the witnesses, and the speeches have to be saved for your closing argument. Wildly irrelevant material gets in that trial. He gets away with all kinds of crazy questions that should have been objected to and clearly overruled.”

“Talk about leading the witness,” Wambaugh says. “In these movies, it’s not just leading the witness, it’s grabbing them by the throat and dragging them down the street with you.”

Wambaugh cites a few other Hollywood felonies:

* “A man is brought to trial on tissue-thin evidence, which is absurd.”

* “The big surprises take place in the courtroom, which is impossible because you’ve got discovery.”

* “The business of going up there and interrogating the witness, with the lawyers in their faces, is absurd.”

* The police are always “inept or dishonest or guilty of some malfeasance.”

In fact, he sees the Simpson trial exacerbating some of these tendencies even as it has illuminated others.

“The only good thing the O.J. case did is that it showed that juries are ruled by passion and prejudice and are easily manipulated by some very unsavory kinds of lawyers,” he says. “But I don’t think that’s going to change Hollywood’s portrayals. The only thing that might change is the portrayal of cops might get worse. It gives them an excuse to go even more overboard on the presentation of corrupt cops or brutal cops or racist cops.”

Another group abused by the Hollywood courtroom is women. Asimow says that one of his favorite trial movies, 1949’s “Adam’s Rib” (which starred Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn), “is the one and only trial picture with a favorable presentation of a female lawyer. All the others are wildly stereotypical.

“There are numerous examples of female lawyers who are going to bed with their clients or sexually acting inappropriately,” he continues. “In ‘A Few Good Men,’ there’s a female trial lawyer who’s quite experienced, but she’s so incompetent that Tom Cruise tries the case even though he’s never tried a case in his life. The trial lawyer in ‘Philadelphia’ who defends the law firm does a reasonably good job but makes a horrendous tactical blunder. In ‘Class Action,’ [the attorney] gets so fed up with her client that she betrays him and goes over to the prosecution. You just don’t do that.”

Asked why this is, Asimow says, “The public doesn’t like lawyers, and they especially don’t like women lawyers, who have to act strongly and aggressively.”

Of course, filmmakers don’t take liberties only because of the public’s appetite for stereotypes or simple answers. More often than not, they do it for storytelling reasons.

“The truth is that the way trials ordinarily function is not particularly dramatic except for a few isolated moments,” says UCLA professor Arenella. “My guess is that movies are about storytelling, and storytelling thrives when you have powerful themes about guilt and innocence and corruption and good going bad. The main story line of the Simpson case portrayed by the mainstream media was that Simpson was guilty, and was the jury going to get it right. I doubt that the basic elements of storytelling are going to change because of the public perceptions of the Simpson case.”

“Primal Fear” director Hoblit, however, says the best way to service these storytelling needs is to strive for reality.

“Over the years of watching TV shows and movies and the news, audiences are hip to what’s going on and how it works,” he says. “If you go and tell a fantasy, then they’ll hook on to that, but if you suggest that they’re going to get an honest look at something, you’d better give it to them or you lose them. One of the things you find yourself up against is telling a good story and violating some truth to do that, or sticking with reality. For my money, the closer you can stay to reality, the better. When you begin the narrative around an effort to stay honest, you can come up with some great solutions that you wouldn’t have otherwise.”

That’s not always easy. The courtroom is a static place, and movies are about movement. The director can create a sense of movement by cutting from character to character while testimony is being given. He can also employ camera moves, although the danger here is that it could get in the way of what is being said.

“One day Michael Chapman, my director of photography, turned to me and said, ‘What do we do now?’ ” Hoblit says. “I said, ‘I’m about out of tricks.’ ”

‘Primal Fear” co-writers Steve Shagan and Ann Biderman say that Simpson wasn’t a factor in the writing of the screenplay. It was adapted from a book by William Diehl, so the “template,” as Biderman puts it, was already in place. But behavioral nuances were not. To get these right, the filmmakers leaned heavily on a Chicago prosecuting attorney named Jeanne Bischoff (Gere also met with Howard Weitzman, Simpson’s original attorney).

They asked Bischoff about opening statements, what the characters would say during the trial, how they would conduct themselves. Veteran Simpson watchers may notice that in contrast to the trial, in which counsel could not move from behind their tables, both Gere and Linney roam freely about the courtroom. According to Bischoff, this is allowable in Illinois state court.

Ironically, when Bischoff finally viewed the film, one of Hoblit’s narrative tricks did catch her eye. A detective delivers blood evidence when in reality a DNA expert would be called in--as any O.J. junkie knows. “It would take me two days to put in that evidence,” Bischoff says. “They wouldn’t have wanted to do that in the movie.”

Otherwise, she says, aside from a discovery issue, the filmmakers got it right, particularly regarding the behavior of the attorneys. “ ‘Primal Fear’ is the way criminal law is practiced throughout the country,” Bischoff says. “Except in your goofy city.”