Justice on Trial

Rated TV-14 • Prime Video

The wheels of justice turn slowly, like interlocking gears. Each cog in the legal system spins other cogs large and small while also being spun by them. In the new series Justice on Trial, former judge and TV personality Judy Sheindlin and “her expert legal team” purport to re-create “landmark cases.” In reality, most of the eight episodes focus on ancillary cases that impacted later trials. Dialogue in the courtroom reenactments often sounds more like narration than legal interchange—a hazard of condensing any complex story to 45 minutes—but Justice on Trial sheds light on the law’s gray areas. Pondering the process is as useful as evaluating the verdict.

Sheindlin, the show’s creator, plays the presiding judge in each trial. The first episode revisits one of Sheindlin’s own cases from the late 1980s, when she wielded the gavel in a Manhattan family court. A foreign attaché facing charges for beating his son invokes diplomatic immunity. Can Child Protective Services retain temporary custody of the boy pending a higher court’s ruling? (Graphic images of child abuse, other violence, and some foul language account for the show’s rating.) The second episode focuses on a hearing concerning a questionably timed Miranda warning and a confession in an Ohio murder trial.

The last two episodes re-­create cases that many have used to discredit Christianity: the Scopes trial and a free-speech dispute involving Westboro Baptist Church. The dramatized proceedings play up the unpopular personalities and perspectives involved.

“The devil’s in the details,” Sheindlin explains. Judge Judy got that right. But one day, the ultimate Judge will put an end to the devil’s dirty work.