The Judicial Pendulum

Have you ever watched a pendulum? It swings left of center, raises slightly as it does, slows and finally stops, but only for an instant. Then inexorably it starts to swing back toward the center, but in doing so it picks up momentum till it passes the center. Its momentum causes it to move past the center and on to the right, to an apogee on the other side. And in the social arena we see the same patterns, public opinion swings to one side, then the other. And we often wonder what drives it. I don’t profess to be a social science expert but I have spent over 55 years watching people. And this pendulum effect happens time and again. Let’s look at an example.

In the late 1950’s television was still a new media, it was flexing its muscles and learning how it could impact society. I doubt that the leaders of the industry had even a clue of the effect they could have. One of the lead shows of the day was Jack Webb’s Dragnet. This was the original series, done on black and white and starred Jack as Joe Friday. His partner was in this series was Frank Smith, played by Ben Alexander. These were made in the fifties (1952-59), the earliest 15 years before the ones we now see with on TVLand with Harry Morgan as Bill Gannon. The show was hard hitting for the day but much in the style of the later shows like Highway Patrol (Broderick Crawford). They depicted police work as it was in that time, long interrogations, tripping up suspects to have them divulge information, break them and have them confess. The suspects were given little quarter in this area. It was definitely far short of the Judge Roy Bean, Law West of the Pecos theme of, “Arrest them, give them a fair and speedy trial and a proper hanging before sundown.” But it was hard nosed police work.

Out of this era came several shows that were different. They were the beginning of a new wave. The first I can remember was “The Court of Last Resort”. This show depicted a group of police, lawyers and judges that would take a case that looked like the person was falsely convicted and review it. In every case they found some miscarriage of justice, the person was freed. You got the idea that the legal system was there to convict, not administer justice. Another show was called “Mr. District Attorney”. It began, “Champion of the people, defender of human rights… It is my duty as district attorney to”… His duties included protecting the innocent. These shows often majored on diminished capacity of defendants and police excesses. The pendulum of the media had begun its deadly swing.