Lawyers and TV spin justice

The extraordinary events that occurred Thursday, when Santa Barbara County prosecutors finally charged pop singer Michael Jackson with child molestation, make clear that it is no longer appropriate to speak of crossing lines or boundaries in the coverage of celebrity trials.

Taken together, the actions of Dist. Atty. Thomas W. Sneddon Jr., Jackson defense lawyer Mark Geragos and wide swaths of the overgrown press corps that assembled to cover the case signify the obliteration of quaint notions like restraint.

Consider:

The filing of nine felony counts against Jackson was orchestrated with the help of a Hollywood public relations firm, Tellem Worldwide, that is providing pro bono services to the Santa Barbara prosecutors. As special correspondent Linda Deutsch and reporter Tim Molloy of Associated Press reported earlier this week, the firm’s other clients include the Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. The firm will be handling all press inquiries during the case, Sneddon told AP. Moreover, he told Deutsch, the unusually long interval between Jackson’s arrest and the formal filing of charges was necessary “so that the county could set up a website to release information to hundreds of news organizations following the case.”

Meanwhile, Thursday evening, Geragos appeared on CNN’s “Larry King Live” and more or less laid out his client’s entire defense, systematically attacking both the evidence and the credibility of Jackson’s accuser. The boy and his family, Geragos alleged, are simply out to shake down his wealthy client.

Legal analysts across the spectrum agreed that the prosecution’s hiring of a public relations firm may be unprecedented. “I’ve never heard of it,” said former Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Robert Philibosian. “Even in L.A., we don’t do that.”

And what of the spectacle of a defense attorney rehearsing his client’s case in detail before a live television audience?

“Well,” said Philibosian, “you know the old saying about art imitating life? In the courts nowadays, life sometimes imitates art.” The veteran prosecutor recalled that he first got a glimpse of what was in store for the criminal justice system when he served as an analyst for ABC News during the O.J. Simpson trial. At the end of that case, Philibosian said, he and the commentator from the defense side were asked to give “mock closing arguments on ‘Good Morning, America.’ Immediately after we finished, they actually brought on another legal commentator to do an analysis of our mock arguments. I thought then that we were entering unexplored territory.”

Unexplored, wild and fraught with unsettling uncertainties. Foremost among them is the question of whether the American system of adversarial justice, elaborated over centuries to our society’s great benefit, may be peculiarly vulnerable to the celebrity-obsessed 24-hour news cycle.

At its most basic, our legal system presumes that, if you lay down a basic set of rules and empower a judge to impartially enforce them, the best way to get at the truth is to let two aggressive adversarial advocates go at each other tooth and claw on their clients’ behalf. It’s a system that rewards calculation and competition. It attracts participants with an appetite for conflict -- people who believe that while winning may not be everything, it’s not exactly nothing.

They’re also precisely the sort of people who, in some substantial number, are likely to be attracted to both the professional notice and the competitive advantage that the current television news climate can provide. And television, which has itself become a kind of primordial struggle for every rating point in every time slot, is only too glad to accommodate.

What begins to emerge here is a picture of a symbiosis in which both justice and journalism ultimately lose.

Here’s why: Consider for a second what has occurred in the decade since Court TV showed that producers could use what might be called the “Monday Night Football”/ESPN model to turn legal journalism into entertainment. Prior to that, practicing lawyers seldom if ever publicly commented on cases other than their own. What Court TV demonstrated was that you could take the sports model that the late Roone Arledge developed for his weeknight football broadcast -- play-by-play announcers, color commentators and real-time sideline reporters -- and combine it with ESPN’s elaboration of game reports into endless chat shows with panels of “experts.”

Sensational trials were an irresistible magnet for the cable TV operations not only because, unlike a professional sporting event, you don’t have to pay to cover them but also because most of the “expert” commentators -- in this case, lawyers -- are only too willing to work for nothing.

Since that realization dawned on producers, the competition for on-camera legal analysts has become positively Darwinian. Law school professors will do in a pinch -- particularly if a constitutional issue is in play. “Former prosecutors” with recognizable trial records are better yet. But the most prized guest of all is a defense attorney still engaged in representing high-profile clients.

Why is that a problem?

It’s a problem because both the television host and the lawyer commentator have something to gain from the relationship.

Take what occurred when Geragos went on King’s show to essentially lay out not only his client’s entire defense but also his relationship with Jackson’s family and his view of the prosecution’s conduct. When it comes to dealing with the press, Geragos is about as able an advocate as one is likely to find these days. He is at once amiably personable and completely focused on his client’s case. King is who he is in television journalism precisely because attack is not part of his reportorial arsenal. Still, even by his gentle standards, Thursday night’s interview gave new meaning to the adjective “nonconfrontational.” If baby goats had softer skins, the notion of kid gloves might come to mind.

The fact is, though, that for some time Geragos has functioned as “Larry King Live’s” unpaid legal analyst. And why not? He’s a camera-ready guest with a lot of experience to bring to bear on the celebrity-focused cases on which King dotes. If Larry wants to discuss a trial and Geragos is in town, they’re on the air together.

Now Geragos’ own trial is the story, and there he is, getting all the time and room he needs to make his client’s case, free of the inconvenience that difficult questions might create.

In the current environment, who can fault him for taking the opportunity -- or King, for that matter, for giving it to him? Take that, Bill O’Reilly.

The relationships between “the people running these shows and their attorney-commentators is something we’re only beginning to focus on,” said Philibosian. “It’s something to think about, though. There are serious implications when television journalists regularly rely on an attorney who is good copy to help them fill their air time, then turn around and allow that lawyer to come on their show and have an open, unchallenged forum in which to present their case.”

Another thing to think about: the implications of prosecutors’ turning to the Cartoon Network’s advisors for help.