Judge Judy rules - why TV's Sheindlin's has been a hit for decades
Each episode starts with the menacing voiceover: “You are about to enter the courtroom of Judge Judith Sheindlin. The cases are real. The people are real. The rulings are final.”
Judge Judy is an American arbitration-based reality court show presided over by former Manhattan Family Court Judge Judith Sheindlin.
The show features Sheindlin as she adjudicates real-life small-claims disputes in a simulated courtroom set.
It broadcast from 1996 to 2021 and is shown all day, every day, from 9am to 5am switching between Freeview channels True Crime, 67, and True Crime Extra, 68.
Judge Judy has become ‘wallpaper’ – except when a case I have not heard before stops me in my tracks and I watch it through, anxious to know the outcome.
However many times I have seen an episode, I delight in Sheindlin’s no-nonsense, common sense judgments which often leave the smug plaintiffs gasping in shock as the defendant is granted thousands of dollars on a counterclaim.
Plaintiffs strut in like a peacock, flouting its feathers, and 15 minutes later skulk out like a drowned rat after being put through the wringer of Sheindlin’s probing questions, ego-bursting wit and withering putdowns.
She shrinks before nobody – shutting up ‘wise guys’ ‘users’ ‘gold-diggers’ and ‘bums’ with the words: “It’s my play pen” or “This is not an audition and I already have the job” or “You think you’re gonna talk over me?”
All small-town America is paraded in front of her as the combatants lay out the rights and wrongs of the case before the shrewd Sheindlin.
From Alabamba to Wisconsin and Arizona to Wyoming, they flock seeking justice and redress – up to $5,000 worth – the maximum her court allows.
Cases include compensation for being punched, kicked and run-over; payment for scratched, dented, towed and crashed cars; owed rent and deposits from defaulters; compensation for ruined weddings and proms by dress makers, caterers or photographers and repayment of loans to fickle lovers.
My favourites are those including animals – usually dogs. Sheindlin is a self-confessed dog lover. I would never hurt one but neither would I cross the road to stroke one. She takes hers to work.
But she does not have any sympathy for owners whose dogs, not on a leash, attack another dog or, and more power to her elbow, a person.
The plaintiffs and defendants in such cases often bring in their pet – cuddled in their arms – and say: “But, judge she’s my baby.”
I cheer when Judge Judy says: “It’s not your baby. It’s a dog.”
Sheindlin gets straight to the heart of the claims – she eschews all ‘pain and suffering’, reasons for infidelity and revenge. As she says: “I don’t care. Tell me who threw the first punch” or “When did your car hit the plaintiff’s truck/motorbike?”
Those who live in a house or apartment and fail to pay their rent, she calls ‘squatters’ – to them and anyone else who uses services then refuses to pay, she is fond of saying, “You ate the steak. You pay the bill.”
Among her other sayings are:
If it doesn’t make sense, then it’s not true.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
That’s a bunch of who shot John.
You think they keep me here cos I’m tall and gorgeous?
Um is not an answer.
Beauty Fades, Dumb is Forever – a title of one of her books.
At her side is the trusty Petri Hawkins-Byrd, referred to on the programme simply as Byrd or Officer Byrd. He is the bailiff and worked with her in the Manhattan Family Court.
Their relationship adds humour to a true-life programme as entertaining as any comedy-drama. Sheindlin is a star of a reality show with the emphasis on ‘real’.
The UK’s attempt to emulate Judge Judy amounted to the anaemic Judge Rinder – as convincing as the albi of the burglar caught red-handed.