‘Judge Judy’ Courts Ratings--and Respect

The young woman is angry, feeling betrayed and definitely no longer in love with the guy facing her a few feet away. Not too long before, when they were still doing goo-goo eyes at each other, she had found the perfect engagement ring. He gave her $7,000 to pay for it and they were both delighted with the result.

As things happen, the engagement ended. She sold the ring and gave him the proceeds: $5,000.

No, no, no, he said, I want the rest of my cash. No, no, no, she said, that’s all I got for the thing.

All right, he said, I’m going to Judge Judy. She’ll decide.

And so they are in Judge Judy Sheindlin’s courtroom, as are more and more people every weekday. The syndicated “Judge Judy” (seen in the Los Angeles area on KCOP-TV Channel 13) is an updated and edgier version of the old “People’s Court,” which ruled on nearly 5,000 cases from 1981 to 1993.

But instead of the avuncular softy, retired Judge Joseph A. Wapner, on the bench, “Judge Judy’s” Sheindlin is tough, like your mother shaking her finger at you after you broke her favorite vase. The folks who bring their cases to Sheindlin’s TV courtroom better not think they can pull one over on her.

“I can be a tough cookie but really, what I want people to learn is to take responsibility. That’s always been my judicial philosophy,” Sheindlin said.

This afternoon, Sheindlin is eating a bowl of perfect strawberries and raspberries at tea time at the Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan. It is hardly her milieu.

“But could I get used to this? Oh, yes,” said Sheindlin, in perfect New Yawkese. Wapner could have been from anywhere, but no one is going to mistake Sheindlin’s Gotham upbringing.

She’s certainly come to TV by the back door. For 20 years, she was the epitome of a no-nonsense judge in Manhattan’s Family Court.

“Crack babies, mothers with AIDS, everything; you name it,” Sheindlin, 54, said. “My average daily court docket, 15 years, was between 40 and 50 cases. The operative word is ‘triage.’ You have to be able to separate what is real from what is crap.

“Have you ever been in a family court?” she goes on, her voice rising, her lips tightening. “When you see the irresponsible behavior and the excuses people give for what they do to their children and grandchildren. And the victims of juvenile justice! Oh!”

She stops and shakes her head. This was her life for two decades. That is, until a 1993 Los Angeles Times profile showed her as one of New York’s most forthright tough-love judges. Soon after, “60 Minutes” did a segment on her and, from that, she got a contract to write her book (with Times reporter Josh Getlin), “Don’t Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It’s Raining” (HarperCollins, $23).

In the book, she rails about the failures of the welfare system, overloads in the courts and, most marked, the rise of irresponsibility, which has caused meaner and younger criminals and fostered family breakups. Also there is her admission that writing the book, with its criticism of certain laws and appeals judges, would make it difficult for her to stay on the bench.

Into the breech came Big Ticket Productions, a part of the Spelling television empire. They liked what they saw on “60 Minutes.”

“They called me in my chambers and said, ‘Would you like to be a judge on television?’ So I thought about it for a couple of minutes and I said, ‘These things don’t work out, but why not run with it?’ ” said Sheindlin, a small, slim grandmother.

“To be in my stage of life and have someone offer me an adventure like this, why not think about it?” she said. So she schlepped out to Los Angeles and made a pilot. Big Ticket took it and her to the annual syndicator’s conference in Las Vegas, and stations in every big market picked it up. “I found schmoozing with these people easy,” she said. “I was different to them than a theatrical personality.”

“Judge Judy” went on the air in September and, by the end of October, was getting 1.5 million viewers a day nationally, putting it in the mid-rank of the 159 syndicated shows on the air. (In Los Angeles, it ranked a respectable fourth during the November ratings sweeps with 7% of the audience in the tough 3 p.m. time period, behind powerhouses “Oprah” and “Rosie O’Donnell” and the Fox cartoon “Batman and Robin.”)

The cases are not much different than those that appeared on “People’s Court.” (In fact, Doug Llewelyn, the “reporter” on “People’s Court,” is a producer on “Judge Judy.”) They are family spats, small-claims lawsuits and the occasional consumer rip-off, a far cry from the rough stuff Sheindlin faced in her former bench life.

“These are real cases because these are real problems that people face all the time. What I dealt with in Family Court were the 5% of the kids who are totally out of control,” Sheindlin said. “We couldn’t really do a program with only those cases. People who watch daytime television don’t want to be further depressed by watching nothing but sadness.”

Producers research court files from all over the country to find cases that might be appropriate for “Judge Judy.” They call both litigants and, if they agree to be bound by Sheindlin’s findings, bring them to Los Angeles for the program. Sheindlin commutes between her New York home and Los Angeles, where she takes on 10 cases--a week’s worth of programs--from Monday to Wednesday. Nothing is scripted, and Sheindlin insists on seeing only the complaint and reply from the defendant, just as she would in Family Court, before hearing each case.

“I can’t learn lines. That’s acting,” she said, leaning forward as she often does to make a point on the program.

One thing Sheindlin doesn’t feel yet is stardom. She asks the Four Seasons maitre d’ politely to watch her show the next time he has a chance. She apologizes for not doing her hair up.

“Sure, I didn’t go outside my house and hail a cab to get here,” she acknowledged. “They sent this monster car to pick me up. When I go to the airport, they have this monster car to take me. Can you get used to it?

“The real question is, ‘Can you get unused to it fast?’ ” she continued. Her answer: “If you had a life and know who you are and know where your head is. That’s why I’m a dangerous commodity, because I do this only as long as I’m happy and having a good time. I have a pension, an apartment and a nice family. Whenever this program goes off the air, it is my fondest wish that it go off with my reputation as a judge intact.”

Oh, and that engagement ring problem. No problem at all. She owes him the $2,000.

“What did she think, that she was owed something for her trouble?” Sheindlin asked. “If there is a message I want to keep repeating, it’s to take responsibility for your actions. Society can no longer afford not to have it that way.”

* “Judge Judy” airs weekdays at 3 p.m. on KCOP-TV Channel 13.