Court Tv Live

Catherine Crier still ranks as the youngest person in Texas history to win election as a state judge. "I was voted in on my 30th birthday, in 1984," she says. Before that, Crier had worked as a prosecutor in the Dallas County district attorney's office, fresh out of Southern Methodist University's law school. She also had a brief career as a civil litigator.

Her years of observing the legal profession up close have left Crier with a less-than-noble view of many of the law's practitioners. She was an outspoken critic of legalistic evasions during the Clinton administration, warning that "the rule of law is not a popularity contest where the most likable, most articulate, or even the most repentant violator wins. And a sworn oath is not contingent upon the subject under discussion."

During the mid 1980s, Crier made a television audition tape at the urging of some friends. CNN hired her, and she proved popular, hosting "The World Today," "Inside Politics," and her own interview program, "Crier & Company." Later, she moved to ABC where she appeared on "20/20" for three years and also substituted for Ted Koppel and Peter Jennings. She helped launch the Fox News Channel in 1996. And since 1999 Crier has hosted "Catherine Crier Live," a daily news and interview program on Court TV.

Having grown up in Texas riding and showing horses, Crier now lives on 31 acres in Westchester, New York and still considers herself an equestrian.

TAE associate editor John Meroney interviewed her for The American Enterprise.

TAE: What attracted you to the law?

CRIER: Mainly, it was the notion of pursuing justice. To me, being a lawyer meant using authority and power to uphold what was right and just. I looked at the profession as defending democracy. The Founders believed the rule of law could defeat tyranny, and lawyers were supposed to be the guardians at the gate. The ideals of the profession certainly appealed to me.

TAE: Your first job out of law school was as an assistant district attorney in Dallas. Less than 24 hours after getting a desk, you had to try a jury case. What did that experience teach you?

CRIER: Being a prosecutor is always trial by fire, and that was especially the case in Texas. Everyone had to walk those coals, and if he couldn't cut it, he was out of a job. I'd just turned 23 when I was hired, and here I was with investigators, police officers, and the power of the state behind me. In Texas. Heady stuff. Prosecutors down there can strut while they're sitting down.

TAE: Why did you give up your private law practice to run for judge?

CRIER: Moral outrage. One day, I went to court to put certain information on the record before a judge who'd been on the bench for 22 years. He looked down and told me to talk to the court reporter, and then left the courtroom. He wandered back 30 minutes later, and signed the papers without even hearing what I'd said.

I was furious he was so nonchalant about a serious legal proceeding. So I said to myself, I'm going to run for the bench.

TAE: Given your complaints about the state of the legal profession, how would you advise someone who wants to go to law school?

CRIER: Even though I'm a critic, I'd recommend it. We need good lawyers. What law schools ought to do is create graduates who will work to protect the system rather than try to tear it down.

TAE: Over the last several decades, a school of thought that says, "I'm not really responsible for my own conduct" seems to have taken hold in our culture. Why has this view also gained currency in the courts?

CRIER: Mainly because of the shift in psychiatry. Years ago, the psychiatric profession began moving away from holding people responsible for their own actions and instead said that conduct could be excused because of something that may or may not have happened in a person's childhood.

That's been very powerful in influencing civil and criminal courts. It's been accepted as science. Pushing liability for your own conduct onto someone else has become the standard legal tactic.

TAE: Isn't the law supposed to hold people accountable for their actions?

CRIER: It's supposed to be the foundation of the social contract. When I was working on "20/20," I covered a story about a young black woman who had used post-traumatic stress disorder as her defense against murder charges. She killed a girl while trying to steal her leather coat. There wasn't any question that the defendant's life had been traumatic. She'd been abused, raped, and surrounded by physical and emotional violence since childhood. She'd probably seen as much torture and degradation as battle veterans.

But did that justify the execution of another child who refused to relinquish her coat?

TAE: In your book, you describe the Senate as cowardly for the way it conducted President Clinton's impeachment trial.

CRIER: If the Senate had proceeded with a real trial, it certainly would have been more courageous than what they did--which was refusing to label the President's conduct for what it was. That trial simply mirrored the view on personal responsibility that we're talking about.

TAE: Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton are the two presidents who've been in the messiest scandals of the last 30 years. What does it say that they're both lawyers?

CRIER: For one, it's a testament to the fact that lawyers know how to make lots of convoluted arguments to get out of things. Whether someone is arguing that it's not breaking the law if the President does it, or he's saying that the answer depends on what the meaning of "is" is, or he answers, "I did it because I was beaten as a child," it's still wrong. And the more laws we have, the easier it is to find a way out. The fewer the laws, the more likely we are to have a just resolution without all this squirming around.

TAE: Over the last few years, the alternative dispute resolution--mediation--has become popular in civil cases, supplanting the jury trial in places. Do you like it?

CRIER: Absolutely. When I was on the bench, it was amazing how many cases could be settled through basic communication. We started sending out notices to the parties instructing them to come down to the courthouse conference room and talk. We told them that the judges would be around to facilitate, and if they didn't settle, that was fine. But just the act of sitting down and communicating about what each party really wanted rather than staring at a bunch of legal jargon spread over 75 pages of a petition caused many to resolve their problems.

TAE: You've said that in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, politicians who've never been supportive of tort reform suddenly rallied to protect their favorite corporations from lawsuits.

CRIER: Both senators from New York, Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, pushed for legislation to protect the leaseholder of the World Trade Center, the City of New York, the Port Authority, airport operators, and the aircraft manufacturers from lawsuits that could have been devastating. Yet in other circumstances, those two senators would scream if anyone tried to limit lawsuits.

TAE: Democrats generally resist tort reform because trial lawyers are among their biggest contributors.

CRIER: The ability to write and manipulate law is the real currency in elected politics. So, contrary to their usual positions, Schumer and Clinton went to companies and said, "What can we do to help you?" They went to airlines and said "How much money do you want?" Senator Patty Murray--a good Democrat--was ready to bail out Boeing because it's in her backyard.

TAE: One of President Bush's biggest speech topics during the recent midterm elections was about the necessity for tort reform. Obviously the White House believes that this is a message that resonates with the public.

CRIER: I'm surprised the White House didn't make it a larger issue earlier in the campaign. People understand how excessive lawsuits are changing their lives. They understand that litigation is a drain on the economy as well as society.

TAE: Provost & Umphrey, a Texas law firm, was recently fined $500,000 for shopping for the most favorable judge in asbestos lawsuits. Apparently, the firm filed four nearly identical lawsuits in four different courts.

CRIER: I'm shocked! There's gambling in this joint!

TAE: Recently, the American Tort Reform Association generated headlines with a study about parts of the country where trial lawyers have unusual advantages because the law seems not to be applied evenhandedly.

CRIER: Mississippi's 22nd Judicial District is infamous. There are advertisements down there telling prospective businesses, "Don't move to Mississippi." In any class-action suit, all a lawyer has to do is go into a community and find one person to represent, and then the suit can be filed there.

Once upon a time, class-action lawsuits were simply efficient mechanisms for trying cases with many parties. Instead of 50 separate cases, there was one big one where everyone had suffered the same damages. Now, it's not that way at all. In the asbestos suits, there are claimants who have no symptoms of illness, and they're getting recoveries. Lawyers are now filing suits to recover for potential injuries. There are toll-free telephone numbers advertised on television asking whether you've ever been exposed to asbestos--not whether you're actually sick. That's absolutely ludicrous.

TAE: Scores of companies--from wineries, to toaster-makers, to Sears, even the publisher of the Wall Street Journal--have been targets of asbestos lawsuits even though they never manufactured asbestos.

CRIER: Sure. Companies that bought a company that somewhere in a subsidiary line may have had an asbestos facility are being tapped for revenue. This is akin to the lead paint cases. Most places stopped using lead paint in the late 1950s. The government didn't even ban it until 1978, but suits have nevertheless been brought against businesses that voluntarily quit using it. The tort bar is going after businesses in an unreasonable way.

TAE: Lawyers now actually do market research to uncover lucrative arguments. A kind of cottage industry--Litigation, Inc.--has developed.

CRIER: For the most part, the law has become another business. I'm concerned when, instead of waiting for a client to walk in the office with a problem, a lawyer puts up a Web site telling people that toothbrush abrasion is a major problem, and that he's trying to put together a class action to sue every toothbrush manufacturer in the United States.

TAE: A lawyer in North Carolina once told me that the best way for someone finishing law school to find the true meaning of the practice of law was to move to a small town and put up his own shingle. He said the definition of being a lawyer is helping people with wills, real estate closings, divorces, and other matters.

CRIER: That's right. You were called a counselor for a reason. Lawyers weren't gladiators. They were counselors.

TAE: Enron was one of the most prominent corporations in your home state. Do you think it was fair that the Bush administration took such a beating from the media when Enron went bust?

CRIER: Those who argued it was merely a Republican scandal ought to go back and track Enron's behavior when Bill Clinton was President. The story of Enron is the story of the law being for sale. Enron put money down on both sides of the political aisle to make sure they were exempt from scrutiny.

TAE: Does the fact that a corporation hires lawyers to help it navigate government regulations and bureaucracy really surprise you?

CRIER: Enron's fall--or WorldCom's--are scandals about the state of the law in America. They demonstrate that what we now have in this country is a government that passes laws designed for contributors and their lawyer lobbyists.

TAE: Do you ever regret giving up the law in order to go into broadcasting?

CRIER: I haven't given up the law--I've just shifted to a different forum. Sure, there are times I miss the substance that comes with practicing and being on the bench. In a trial, I could cross-examine a witness for three days. On television, I'm supposed to cover meaningful topics in three and a half minutes.

TAE: Before Court TV, you worked at the Fox News Channel. The Fox News slogan is that it's "fair and balanced," but many regard it as conservative.

CRIER: Fox is definitely more conservative than the others in terms of the kinds of stories it puts on the air. In general, I think Fox has done a very good job of bringing on the other side and letting them have their say.

TAE: You've also worked at CNN. What's the biggest difference between the cultures of CNN and Fox?

CRIER: After Fox News emerged, there began to be more political back and forth on general news stories at CNN. Now CNN is really trying to get more people to express opinions across a broad range.

TAE: What kind of boss is Ted Turner?

CRIER: I love people who say what they think, and I always felt that when I asked Ted a question he gave me an honest answer.

TAE: There is a debate going about whether jury deliberations should be televised. In general, do you believe that cameras in the courtroom are good for the law?

CRIER: Yes. Those who are against cameras in the courtroom are mainly against it because of what happened during O. J. Simpson's trial. Yet we try thousands of cases every year on Court TV, and they're not events.

When David Westerfield was on trial for kidnapping and killing Danielle Van Dam in 2002, we carried the case. The ratings were enormous, but no one was jumping up and down in front of the courthouse, and people weren't acting like idiots in the courtroom.

On the other hand, look at the Sean "Puffy" Combs gun and bribery case in 2001: There were no cameras for his trial, and it was an absolute zoo. How a trial plays out in terms of the public has to do with the character of the defendant and how much of a show the judge allows the attorneys to put on when they stand on the courthouse steps. In the O. J. trial, there was sex, drugs, murder, and race--it was soap opera.

TAE: Even when the Supreme Court heard the 2000 Presidential election case, the justices allowed audio from the oral arguments to be broadcast.

CRIER: Yes, and Court TV ran those tapes on air. I thought it was brilliant and breathtaking, like the old days of radio. But then again, I can watch paint dry.

COPYRIGHT 2003 American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group

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