Jerry! Jury! Jerry! Jury!

The clerk instructs prospective jurors in the Los Angeles Superior Court’s assembly room: Get here on time. Don’t wear flip-flops. As for the room’s TV, Oprah, OK. Ricki Lake, fine. Jerry Springer, verboten. Huh? Apparently, a week of Springer programs on racial tension had sparked some heated verbal altercations between jurors a few months earlier. “We have told the staff to monitor what is going on and be guarded about what the jurors are watching,” says Gloria Gomez, manager of juror services. “But it’s not supposed to be policy. I was at the criminal courts building recently, and the staff was watching Jerry Springer, and I didn’t stop them.”