Celebrity court’s in session, cue the spotlight

Celebrities are always magnetic, celebrities in a jam flat-out irresistible.

In other words, what a pity Winona Ryder’s trial isn’t televised. What a great event for America it will be if Robert Blake’s is.

One day we want show-biz celebrities’ autographs, the next fistfuls of their flesh. We adore seeing them blow like Mount Etna, then shrink from the paparazzi’s white-hot glare as Dracula does from daylight.

Especially those with a Hollywood sheen, whether Hugh Grant pleading no contest in 1995 to a charge of lewd contact with a hooker to famous-for-being-famous Zsa Zsa Gabor, who instead of fleeing camera crews outside the courtroom in 1989 embraced them before being found guilty of slapping a Beverly Hills cop.

The seedier a celebrity’s troubles -- think accused shoplifter Ryder and alleged murderer Blake -- the better.

A former Saks Fifth Avenue security employee has claimed in court that Ryder told her she was researching a pair of movie roles after allegedly swiping more than $5,500 in unpaid designer goods from the Beverly Hills store where, this week’s testimony shows, you can max out your credit card in three minutes.

Ryder denies committing theft. If she actually said that about the movie roles, though, she’s either dumb as a log or loopy as a loon.

What role is Blake researching? He has yet to be tried after being charged with the May 4 shooting of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, in a case that’s a cheap TV movie begging to be made.

And a trial demanding to be televised.

California is one of 37 states allowing cameras in criminal courtrooms, with trial judges having the final say. Since O.J. Simpson’s controversially televised criminal trial, fewer judges have said yes, confusing the boisterous media frenzy outside with what went on inside the courtroom of Judge Lance Ito, who was pilloried hilariously by Jay Leno’s Dancing Itos.

Blake is already dancing. So don’t complain that TV cameras would turn his trial into a circus.

What would you expect in any case, something solemn like a wake? With a trapezer like Blake in the box -- stopped by Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca this week from spilling his guts in jail to Diane Sawyer on ABC -- this trial was ordered up by Ringling Bros.

TV or not, clowns, kazoos and cotton candy are already in the wings, courtroom floors being saw-dusted, Blake fitted for his Great Zambini tights. Add to that the shady resume of his wife, whom he denies murdering, and you have a spectacle that invites devouring by the public.

It will be ... exquisite.

But what to do in the meantime? With no celebrity trial on TV this week, I turned to “Celebrity Justice,” a 2-month-old syndicated series that tracks the legal problems of entertainment VIPs. It’s available on KCAL at 4:30 p.m. weekdays when most viewers here are lapping up “Dr. Phil” on KNBC. Their loss.

As wiggy as “Dr. Phil” is, “Celebrity Justice” is a howl not to be missed. How often is there a legal show designed for an audience that doesn’t know Perry Mason from Perry Como? This one makes “Court TV” look like the Yale Law Review. When I saw that commercial for personal injury lawyer Larry H. Parker (“Fighting for you is my job!”), I knew I was home.

Based in Los Angeles, “Celebrity Justice” was created by Harvey Levin, and is even funnier than he was during his years as a local news reporter here before he began interviewing people on the street for “People’s Court.”

In fact, “Celebrity Justice” has local news crayoned all over it while applying breathless team coverage to celebrities with go-getters including anchor Holly Herbert, who spent a year glossing up at KABC here, revved-up reporter Pat LaLama, who spent a year about everywhere in L.A., and former KCAL anchor-reporter Jane Velez-Mitchell. What a difference a job makes, for the formerly sober Velez-Mitchell now projects great urgency, as if jabbed by an electric prod.

Wednesday’s lead “lowdown”: Winona.

Reporter Ross McLaughlin had the “evidence” inside the courtroom, bolstered by an artist’s sketch of a pair of scissors Ryder allegedly used to cut sensor tags from merchandise, and another of her when “her jaw literally dropped” in response to testimony against her.

But swiftly now on to LaLama, who had the Winona wardrobe dish, because “how she looks and what she wears could be part of a cagey legal strategy.” Get out.

Mentioned later also was Blake’s search for a cagey new attorney after Harlan Braun’s decision to resign because of his client’s “emotional need to speak out” about the case against Braun’s advice.

But quick now to New York where reporter Carlos Dias had caught up on the pavement with actor Matthew Modine who, “Celebrity Justice” had learned, was in a jury pool for a murder trial. Oh, the irony. “He was in ‘Married to the Mob,’ ” Herbert noted, “and now he’s fighting crime in real life.”

Well, not quite, Herbert revealed after the taped interview, for it turned out that Modine wasn’t chosen for the murder trial after all. Bummer. But he could be called “in another case,” she chirped. And viewers could count on “Celebrity Justice” being there to deliver the “lowdown.”

Meanwhile, “Celebrity Justice” had also learned that actor Paul Sorvino and his daughter Amanda had moved their dog out of their Manhattan penthouse after neighbors complained of barking. Then suddenly -- had the half-hour really zoomed by this speedily? -- it was time for “There Oughta Be a Law,” a show-ending feature with teed-off male soap actors getting a load off of their shoulders.

“There oughta be a law,” said one, “against my wife being in a bad mood.”

What’s not to love about a show where law and luminaries mingle daily, one that reminds you of a lawyer with a shiny suit? Depending on the outcomes of their cases, I can see Ryder and Blake co-anchoring it someday.

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Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be contacted at howard.rosenberg@latimes.com

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‘Celebrity Justice’

“Celebrity Justice” is shown at 4:30 p.m. weekdays, 6 p.m. Saturdays, on KCAL, Channel 9.