Is Ito Giving Too Much Credit to Impact of TV?

At work last week, a colleague wondered how the prospective O.J. Simpson jurors will learn about the election campaign since they can’t watch television, listen to the radio or read the newspapers.

The question by Patt Morrison, one of my neighbors in a three-person workstation, was intriguing. In the interests of a fair trial, Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito was depriving voters in the jury pool of information needed to exercise their right to vote.

It definitely seemed a case of cutting off a nose to spite a face. And certainly a perfect example of the law of unintended consequences.

I called Jerrianne Hayslett of the court press office and asked her about it. She said she’d talk to Ito. The next day, she got back to me.

Ito, she said, thanked me for bringing the question to his attention. He hadn’t thought of it. He had a solution. Could The Times put together packets of pre-election stories for the jury pool?

I asked our managing editor, who thought it was a good idea. Our library is now compiling election stories back to Oct. 20, and we’ll keep the news flowing to the jurors every day. The Daily News is doing the same.

The jury panel may end up being California’s best informed voters.

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The incident got me thinking about the judge, and his relationship to the jury pool.

It’s been clear from the beginning that he’s someone who firmly believes he can control events, that his power extends beyond his courtroom, beyond the courthouse, into the homes, workplaces and minds of the jurors.

There is another facet of Judge Ito that is shaping the trial as well. He is, as he noted to a juror one day, a child of the television generation.

The impact of this was noted last week by Linda Deutsch of the Associated Press, one of the pool reporters in the courtroom. “Judge Ito has this incredible knowledge of popular culture,” she said. “He knows all the shows, the games, the scores. I don’t know where he has the time. He tries to keep up with everything.”

This, Deutsch said, put him on the same wavelength as many of the prospective jurors, who are also movie, television and sports fans. “He has great rapport with the jurors,” she said.

That helped me understand why he is so intent on controlling the jurors’ relationship with popular culture, why he kicked one prospect out for watching an old Barbara Stanwyck movie on television, and another for watching videotaped episodes of “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Melrose Place.”

I can visualize him rising early to catch “Good Morning America” and staying up late for Jay Leno, David Letterman (Ito is probably a channel switcher) and even Conan O’Brien, whose show begins at 12:35 a.m. As one lawyer told me, “They ought to sequester the judge.”

Because he’s absorbed in it, I bet Ito thinks all this popular culture has a powerful impact on people. Only that could explain his admonition that prospective jurors have no exposure to any media, no matter what the subject. He must believe a Leno monologue or “Melrose Place” episode can have a powerful impact, or that a sentence or a fleeting glance of Simpson case news will pollute the jurors’ minds.

This isn’t how most people think. I watch “NYPD Blue” all the time and waste many hours viewing sports. But except to get mad when a favorite team loses, or when David Caruso quits his Detective John Kelly role on “NYPD Blue,” I don’t take it seriously.

Most people don’t. Our lives are crowded with family, work, social activities, sports, religion, school and the rest. In that mix, “Melrose Place” doesn’t have much clout.

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It’s hard to believe a judge is worrying about all this. You think of judges as big-picture people. Instead, Ito is getting involved in the smallest details of the jury panelists’ TV habits. That’s what parents are supposed to worry about.

This is making things hard on the jury panel. “I’m not happy because I want to vote,” a Brentwood woman told Ito in complaining about the news blackout.

Ito assured her that election news packets were on the way. He also has promised to ease the media restrictions somewhat within the next two weeks. But with his strict, all-encompassing restrictions, I’m sure something else will crop up soon.