Law as performance

The courtroom as theater is such a commonplace notion that it has even been the subject of installation art, including the installation pictured here, “Set: Room 302,” a collaboration between Judy Radul and Geoffrey Farmer. Commenting on the piece, Richard Fowler, a lawyer, makes explicit some of the ways both the artists and he himself as a lawyer treat a trial as, literally, a performance:

Room 302 uses a courtroom to convey, through performance and the setting itself, ideas about truth and reality. The roles of the lawyer, witness, guard and court reporter are enacted and observed reading from scripts. Occasionally, two unseen voices can be heard directing the performers. With the court reporter overseeing the performance, scenes are redone, sounds and events recreated. In essence, a real event is recreated by the performance to produce a new reality; we judge the past by what we are shown in the present.

Trials are a process by which we attempt to recreate the past in the present so that judges can decide what happened. Rules of evidence guide the process and ensure the integrity of the recreation. For example, evidence must generally be a first hand account – the witness must have seen or heard the event themselves. Rumour, gossip, stories passing from one person to another, inferences, opinions – the ingredients of real life – are not admissible. Conventions and formalities govern the performances of the lawyers. The process is grounded in solemnity and dignity: the judge and lawyers wear robes, the judge is ‘my lady,’ and opposing counsel ‘my learned friend.’ . . .

The courtroom is like any theatre and the trial like any performance. The lawyers learn their lines and practice their performances. Witnesses are given advice about how to play their roles. Court clerks guide the performance, directing witnesses, introducing the judge and providing some narrative of events. Sheriffs usher the audience, provide security, and open and close the room.

It is within this context that I, as a defence lawyer, defend people. The prosecutor directs her witnesses to describe an account of a past event; I attempt to throw doubt on that account. Does the witness’ account make sense, is it reliable, is it exaggerated, or is the witness lying? I attempt to unravel the carefully prepared performances of the witnesses, to move them from their script. The witness is now improvising. Without a script frailties of perception and cognition are soon revealed, sources of contamination exposed, and bias or prejudice indicated. The judge relies on these raw ingredients to adjudge the performance; was it genuine, impartial, reliable, credible or exposed as exaggerated, embellished, unreliable and incredible?

My difficulty is convincing my students law isn’t just the rules, but a performance constrained by the rules, and that they have to not only learn the rules, but also then learn how to integrate the rules into meaningful depictions of the real life they and everyone else live outside the classroom