“People come in here with preconceived notions,” Cook County circuit court judge Earl E. Strayhorn tells a group of prospective jurors. “Wipe your minds free and clear of them. Nothing you’ve seen on any of those programs–NYPD Blue, L.A. Law–is going to happen here. No one is going to jump up in the back of the courtroom and confess to the crime. Those are entertainment programs, written by scriptwriters, designed to keep you glued to the screen until the advertiser’s message is shown. There is no message here. Justice is not for sale.”
“I always think of law like theater,” says Robert Goodman, one of three public defenders assigned to Strayhorn’s courtroom. “Sometimes the attorneys take over. But in that courtroom Strayhorn’s always the star, the leading man.”
Assistant state’s attorney Mark Shlifka, one of three prosecutors assigned to Strayhorn’s courtroom, remembers the warning given to him by his predecessors: Strayhorn basically does what he wants and yells at everyone, characteristics that dart between being helpful and harmful to a case.
“Strayhorn’s been brash lately,” one attorney observed. “More impatient, more difficult, more intolerant, more old man, more cantankerous.”
