I used to have a job for three different counties and two different companies where I did background checks on people and it required me to spend time at different courthouses. While I have never once seen a courtroom in action, I can tell you that television gets a major thing wrong about how it comes to handling cases in a court of law. And it’s all of them too. I know that the title of this post makes it seem like I’m singling out just courtroom dramas, but I do mean that it could be considered any show on TV that features courtrooms in it at some point or another.
That thing is this: cell phones. You cannot bring cell phones into a courthouse. You will get in serious trouble. And, yes, this includes lawyers and judges. You cannot bring cell phones in there. There is a sign outside of the courtrooms that says absolutely no cell phones allowed. If this happens in a small town like what I live in, then it certainly would happen in the big cities that shows are often set in.
What would the punishment for having a cell phone in a courtroom be? I’m not sure. But I’m almost certain that it wouldn’t be what you’d see in TV shows. It wouldn’t be judges getting mildly annoyed. It would likely be them being arrested on the spot for contempt of court.
That’s why it’s annoying that every show that uses scenes in a courtroom gets this wrong. I mean, you’d think that with all of the legal analysis and experts that they use to get a show as accurate as possible, they would get something as simple as no cell phones in a courtroom right. Have none of these writers done something as simple as visit a courtroom to see a case happen? I would at some point. That is why I’m upset that this is always wrong.
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