Dear American TV Shows

[l_o_lostshadows]

If you are not a show that regularly has courtroom scenes, please resist the urge to write an episode that contains one.

If you fail to resist this urge, please remember the following points that pretty much everyone in your audience already knows:

1. Witnesses aren't in the courtroom before they testify. I know it's dramatic, but it doesn't happen.*
2. They probably won't be there if they already did testify, in case they need to be recalled.
3. The D.A. presents their case before the defense presents their's. The D.A. might get a chance to call rebuttal witnesses, after that, but this witness will not be the one the whole case rests on.
4. People are really unlikely to spontaneously confess on the witness stand.**
5. Questions have to be relevant.***

I'm probably forgetting a number of others, but I just watched a court episode of a TV show that had both 1 and a bad case of 3.

*Okay, Law & Order gets this one wrong, and it is a court show.
**Sorry Perry Mason.
***And yes, this does include asking if they've seen a movie. I'm looking at you Law & Order.