Here Comes the Judge

The old “People’s Court� turned real-life litigation into a TV game show. During 2,340 half-hours starting in 1981, defendants and plaintiffs pled their cases before Judge Wapner, who then sternly ruled on who had won.

After four years in adjournment, “The People’s Court� reconvened two weeks ago with former New York Mayor Ed Koch on the bench.

Much about this version is the same as the original, including the law governing them both: People love to be on TV.

But also in effect is a second principle of human nature: Everyone, not just the duly appointed judge, likes to hand down opinions.

Particularly when we gaze into the halls of justice, we all think we’re qualified to pass judgment. Thanks to Court TV, cameras in the courtroom, and gavel-to-gavel miniseries like the O.J. Simpson murder trial, we viewers have convinced ourselves we know more jurisprudence than Alan Dershowitz.

With that in mind, “People’s Court� now invites us to go on-line (www.peoplescourt.com) where we can render our own verdicts and second-guess Judge Koch’s. The show is “totally new and interactive,� its anchor, Carol Martin, likes to tell her audience.

“Let’s check on our live Web-site poll,� says Martin, a former local-TV news anchor sitting at what looks like a -- well, a local-TV news set. An up-to-the-moment tally appears on the screen.

Then she cuts to sidewalk reporter Harvey Levin, who consults passersby bunched before the camera on the newly dubbed People’s Corner (others know it as Manhattan’s Herald Square).

All this interactivity is taking place during a recess in the trial. Adjacent to Martin’s installation back in the studio stands the three-walled, paneled courtroom set where, a few days earlier, the trial had been taped, then pruned for airing.

In contrast to Wapner, Koch is a model of affability, as go-down-easy as an egg cream, with a comparable proportion of gas.

Despite his chatty, warm-as-a-subway-grate approach, there is no suggestion that Edward I. Koch takes his judicial duties any less seriously than did Joseph A. Wapner or, for that matter, Oliver W. Holmes.

“I’m doing to the parties that come into that courtroom what I did as mayor,� Koch explains, back in his chambers. “I want them to feel they got a fair shake from someone who cares about them.�

They probably do. But even more important, they got it on TV.

“People’s Court� airs weekdays at 1 p.m. on KCAL.