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Review

Latest 'Law & Order' delivers cynical verdict

Trial by Jury is up to the standards set by the original, but the courtroom is too often portrayed as a venue for corruption, not justice.

By CHASE SQUIRES
Published March 3, 2005

Watching the final performances of the late Jerry Orbach isn't the unsettling part of the latest Dick Wolf franchise, Law & Order: Trial by Jury, premiering tonight.

Orbach, who died Dec. 28 of cancer at 69, turns in his usual stalwart job as smart-aleck, street-smart Detective Lennie Briscoe, a role he played for 12 years on the original Law & Order. In the first two episodes of the new series, he's retired from the NYPD and is working as an investigator for the district attorney's office.

NBC is marketing the show, in part, as Orbach's final performances. After this, it's over. According to the network, there will be mention of his passing later in the series, explaining the character's disappearance from the show, but no big memorial services.

No, seeing Orbach back from the dead isn't the unsettling part; it's the show's cynical take on the justice system that wears a bit uncomfortably.

NBC says Trial by Jury "shows the inner workings of the judicial system." Judging from the first episodes, the judicial system must be a sordid mess.

In episodes distributed for reviews, a judge (a guest appearance by Candice Bergen) admits she's bending the rules to convict a cop killer; a defense attorney takes a tainted case only so he can sue the police department on the side; a prosecutor chuckles about winning a murder conviction by sneaking excluded material in front of jurors; witnesses are coached to leave information out of their testimony; jurors admit in the jury room their judgment was tainted by reading a magazine story; and District Attorney Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson) suggests that he bases courtroom strategy on his upcoming election.

"I was always under the ridiculous illusion that a trial was a search for the truth," an attorney played by Annabella Sciorra says.

"Oh please, counselor," scoffs Bergen, as the judge. "A trial is a search for admissible evidence."

The production and performances are up to the usual quality of Law & Order. By now, it's rote.

Orbach is witty and jaded. Bergen is dignified and smug. Thompson is dour, and Bebe Neuwirth (she used to be Lilith on Cheers and Frasier) as Assistant District Attorney Tracey Kibre is smart and tough.

Dramatic license is expected and accepted on TV. In real life, courtrooms aren't exciting places to hang out, and the jobs of prosecutors and defense attorneys mostly involve routine paperwork and routine cases. So there's no problem with adding a few twists in a dramatic production.

But isn't there room for some characters with ideals? Some integrity? Isn't there some good that's done in those hallowed halls of justice?

Chase Squires can be reached at 727 893-8739 or squires@sptimes.com

Law & Order: Trial by Jury premieres at 10 tonight on WFLA-Ch. 8, then moves to its regular time slot at 10 p.m. Friday.

[Last modified March 3, 2005, 01:00:10]