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Unsung Heroes of the Court · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello, everybody. It's your old pals Josh and Chuck, and
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Speaker 1: you will have the chance to see us live in
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Speaker 1: person for the first time in two years, Friday, January
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Speaker 1: twenty one in San Francisco. Right, Chuck, that's right, We're
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Speaker 1: returning to the stage at Sketch Fest. We're very excited
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Speaker 1: about it. We can't wait to see everyone. It is
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Speaker 1: a VACS only show. Bring your backscard. It is a
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Speaker 1: mask only show. Bring that mask. Can't wait to see
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Speaker 1: a third of your faces. That's right. You can get
0:27
Speaker 1: tickets at s F sketch Fest dot com and again Friday,
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Speaker 1: January one, thirty pm Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, California.
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Speaker 1: We will see you there. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know,
0:41
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to
0:49
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w Chuck,
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Speaker 1: Bryan and Jerry's over there, and this is stuff you
0:55
Speaker 1: should know. Let's get to it, friends. Yeah, that's right.
1:01
Speaker 1: But hey, we have a bit of an announcement that
1:04
Speaker 1: I'm excited about me too. We have added a new
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Speaker 1: writer to the stable. Uh Olivia Greshawn and this is
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Speaker 1: Libya's first effort and how we're doing it, you know,
1:15
Speaker 1: because we've we've never really on boarded people because uh
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Speaker 1: David Edward colleagues of ours from the Housetuff worksdays. So
1:22
Speaker 1: we thought, maybe, you know, we'd give someone an article,
1:24
Speaker 1: not I mean sort of as a tryout, but just
1:27
Speaker 1: to make sure that it was a good fit. And
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Speaker 1: Olivia killed it right out of the block. And she's
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Speaker 1: super talented as a writer and obviously very smart and
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Speaker 1: great at research, and like I know, both speaking for
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Speaker 1: both of us, we're just very excited to have Livia
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Speaker 1: on board. And uh yeah, so thanks Olivia, and welcome
1:46
Speaker 1: to the to the family. Welcome aboard, Olivia. If you
1:51
Speaker 1: went to high school with Livia, now would be a
1:52
Speaker 1: good time to email her and say, hey, I didn't
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Speaker 1: know you were writing for stuff you should know. She'd
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Speaker 1: be like, oh that yeah. But this is a kind
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Speaker 1: of fun one I think as a first assignment to
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Speaker 1: for her because it's a little different, and that it
2:06
Speaker 1: wasn't just one um one really deep dive on one
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Speaker 1: single thing. What she's gonna bomb that when we give
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Speaker 1: her that next one, but this is actually three things
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Speaker 1: in one. I had the idea of court stenography. But
2:23
Speaker 1: then I was like, you know what, maybe, uh, that's
2:26
Speaker 1: not quite enough. But I didn't want to do it
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Speaker 1: as a shorty, so I thought, let's just expand it
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Speaker 1: and talk about bailiff's uh court stenography and court sketch artists,
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Speaker 1: the triumvirate. Yeah, what we're calling the unsung heroes of
2:42
Speaker 1: the courtroom because they're there. Uh, but you know, you're
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Speaker 1: not really ideally if they're doing their job right and
2:48
Speaker 1: they're not a celebrity bailiff, you're not even gonna know
2:50
Speaker 1: they're there. Yeah, that's pretty much true. They're kind of
2:53
Speaker 1: meant to kind of blend into the background. Is the
2:56
Speaker 1: judge who wants all the attention usually sometimes the lawyers, Okay,
3:00
Speaker 1: bailiffs sometimes the lawyers, please, um, even the bailiff that's
3:04
Speaker 1: super busy doing things. They're they're not showboating, you know
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Speaker 1: what I'm saying. No, they're not like twirling their gun
3:11
Speaker 1: or anything or being like hurry up, this is boring.
3:15
Speaker 1: That would be bad. But bailiffs are the least exciting though,
3:17
Speaker 1: so I think we should start with them. Okay, so bailiff's,
3:20
Speaker 1: it turns out, um find their heritage. It goes back
3:24
Speaker 1: many many centuries actually, and they apparently originally started out
3:28
Speaker 1: in the UK as kind of legal overseers of a
3:34
Speaker 1: manor house for a feudal lord. Basically, yeah, kind of
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Speaker 1: property managers. They could collect rent today, would sometimes do
3:43
Speaker 1: some accounting, they could collect fines. I think a little
3:47
Speaker 1: later on is when they were brought into the court system,
3:52
Speaker 1: but it was still sort of doing like sheriffy things, right.
3:57
Speaker 1: So that I saw, Chuck was the bailey in ants
4:00
Speaker 1: where they were much more um involved in courts and
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Speaker 1: they actually have more power. They were more of a
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Speaker 1: government official than just like somebody who served a feudal lord. Okay,
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Speaker 1: And that's where this it's it's weird. It's almost like
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Speaker 1: between medieval England and medieval France, between these two interpretations
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Speaker 1: of what a bailiff was, it got all mixed together,
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Speaker 1: shaken up, some stuff fell off and some stuff stick around.
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Speaker 1: And then you said, okay, now we have the bailiff
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Speaker 1: as we understand it today, right, which is you know,
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Speaker 1: kind of what we're gonna concentrate on is the the
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Speaker 1: good old fashioned American bailiff sitting in the quarter eat
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Speaker 1: eating apple pie and ready to jump in there and
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Speaker 1: crack someone's skull open, or hand the judge a key
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Speaker 1: piece of evidence or arrest somebody. Yeah, because a bailiff
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Speaker 1: today is as far as people in America and if
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Speaker 1: you're in the UK, you're like, oh, I know the
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Speaker 1: bailiff is. It's somebody who, uh there's a water bailiff
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Speaker 1: for there's an eviction bailiff who deals with travelers who
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Speaker 1: won't leave. Um, that's not really our understanding of bailiff
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Speaker 1: in the United States. In the United States, we think
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Speaker 1: of them almost exclusively as an officer of the court,
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Speaker 1: who is, in most people's opinion, the the security for
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Speaker 1: the court. Like they were a gun, they were a badge.
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Speaker 1: They're very frequently like a sheriff's deputy or a federal
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Speaker 1: marshal or something like that. But apparently there's way more
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Speaker 1: to their job than just that I had no idea about.
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Speaker 1: Like I really thought they were just there just stand
5:29
Speaker 1: up and look menacing that was their their purpose. Uh. Yeah,
5:33
Speaker 1: there's about eighteen thousand and change in the United States. Interestingly,
5:38
Speaker 1: it's not a it's not an official title. Um, it's
5:42
Speaker 1: just sort of, as Olivia says, like a colloquial term
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Speaker 1: for someone who does this job. Um, but you don't
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Speaker 1: get titled bailiff. They just they just call you bailiff.
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Speaker 1: Like you can be a a part time bailiff in
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Speaker 1: a small town but also be a marshal or a
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Speaker 1: sheriff's deputy as your main job. Yeah, I think even
6:00
Speaker 1: in in um in big cities that can be the
6:02
Speaker 1: case as well. But um, but yeah, I think you're
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Speaker 1: you're you're You're definitely in a smaller area, more rural
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Speaker 1: area where there's say, less court activity, they're gonna be like,
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Speaker 1: this is not big enough of a job for you.
6:14
Speaker 1: You need to do more. You need to pull your
6:15
Speaker 1: weight more than this. That's right, So go back to
6:18
Speaker 1: be a veterinary assistant, all right, deliver the paper, Yeah,
6:22
Speaker 1: do a little bailiffing, and don't forge the mayor's That's right.
6:27
Speaker 1: So some of the other jobs that a bailiff has
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Speaker 1: that I wasn't aware of. You said something about them
6:33
Speaker 1: handling evidence. If you are dealing with evidence in the court,
6:37
Speaker 1: you do not just hand it to the judge. You
6:39
Speaker 1: hand it to the bailiff, and the bailiff hands it
6:41
Speaker 1: to the judge. That was a big one. I didn't realize, Yeah,
6:44
Speaker 1: you present the murder weapon and you run it. The
6:46
Speaker 1: judge with it, right, and then bailiff says, go ahead,
6:49
Speaker 1: yeah exactly. Another one that I did know but didn't
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Speaker 1: realize I knew is that the bailiff is usually the
6:54
Speaker 1: person who swears in a witness, making them swear an
6:57
Speaker 1: oath on the Bible or the Constitution or something like that,
7:00
Speaker 1: depending on whether you're in a red state or a
7:02
Speaker 1: blue state, you know what I mean. Yeah, they're gonna
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Speaker 1: usher the jury in and out. They're gonna usher the
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Speaker 1: prisoners in and out. Uh. You know, a lot of
7:10
Speaker 1: times with these big trials, they'll have you know, a
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Speaker 1: few bailiffs working the room. Uh. They tell people to
7:15
Speaker 1: not smoke, They tell people, they screen people when they
7:18
Speaker 1: come into the courtroom. They have to you know, you
7:20
Speaker 1: can't yell out loud. You can't do that, not in
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Speaker 1: this court. Like the judge is gonna admonish them. But
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Speaker 1: then the judge is gonna look over at the bailiff,
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Speaker 1: and the bailiff is gonna say, I know what that
7:28
Speaker 1: look means, right, Yeah, And I was gonna say good.
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Speaker 1: Bailiff doesn't even need to wag their finger, like the
7:33
Speaker 1: kemb motumbo. They can just shoot a look and you
7:36
Speaker 1: know exactly what you're not supposed to be doing anymore.
7:39
Speaker 1: So Olivia did some research on on a website that
7:43
Speaker 1: kind of broke down the you know, like what makes
7:46
Speaker 1: for a good bailiff if you're looking to do this
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Speaker 1: as a job, And they classified it as highly social
7:52
Speaker 1: with constant contact with others, including unpleasant and angry people
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Speaker 1: and physically aggressive people. So you're not just the muscle,
8:00
Speaker 1: but you're definitely the muscle exactly. Um, which means you're
8:05
Speaker 1: also providing security to not just to the courtroom, but
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Speaker 1: for like functions of the court. So like, if the
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Speaker 1: jury is sequestered, your job as bailiff is to be
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Speaker 1: one of the people guarding them. You're also kind of
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Speaker 1: in charge of guarding the jury against themselves, so like
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Speaker 1: if the jury is not supposed to be discussing the
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Speaker 1: case or at some point, you're supposed to be there
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Speaker 1: making sure that they don't discuss the case. Yeah that look, um,
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Speaker 1: you're just basically making sure everybody's following the rules as
8:34
Speaker 1: much as possible. That's right, And I thought this is
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Speaker 1: pretty interesting, kind of going back to the feudal lord
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Speaker 1: time bailiff still in the United States can be responsible
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Speaker 1: for evicting people, not just in England. I saw that
8:48
Speaker 1: was Michigan, in Ohio and I think Washington State all
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Speaker 1: use bailiffs still, whereas other places use sheriff's deputies. But
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Speaker 1: then confusingly, in some places of bailiff is a sheriff's deputy.
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Speaker 1: What do you paid for doing this? Grand? Easy? Not
9:03
Speaker 1: quite h it depends state governments pay much more. There's
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Speaker 1: a median of almost sixty nine grand a year, which
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Speaker 1: is not bad if you're on a local level, maybe
9:13
Speaker 1: forty two grand for being a bailiff. What I didn't understand,
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Speaker 1: and I didn't get a chance to look up, is
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Speaker 1: if that's on top of your salary as a marshal
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Speaker 1: or a a sheriff's deputy or something like that. Uh,
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Speaker 1: it wouldn't surprise me if you part time to bailiff.
9:32
Speaker 1: If it might be more of an hourly thing. But
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Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm just guessing there, um but not.
9:38
Speaker 1: You know, it's not bad scratch for a high school
9:40
Speaker 1: graduate or to get your g e d. That's a
9:43
Speaker 1: you know, it's a very good living. Uh. You can
9:45
Speaker 1: have a degree in criminal Justice. I saw where and
9:48
Speaker 1: we'll talk about celebrity bailiffs here in a second. But
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Speaker 1: Judge Judy's bailiff Petrie. Is it Petrie Hawkins Bird or
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Speaker 1: Petrie I have never watched the second of Judge Judy
10:01
Speaker 1: Points of Pride in my life, so I don't know,
10:03
Speaker 1: but I'm going with Hawkins Bird. He had a he
10:06
Speaker 1: had AH, he has a criminal justice degree, so he's legit, right. Um,
10:13
Speaker 1: So well, I mean, let's talk about celebrity bailiff's because
10:17
Speaker 1: there's basically two that come to mind, and one of
10:19
Speaker 1: them is Petrio Petrie Hawkins Bird, who was Judge Judy's
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Speaker 1: bailiff for twenty five seasons of Judge Judy. And I
10:30
Speaker 1: read a like a really sad little article. So apparently
10:33
Speaker 1: Judge Judy um ran her course on CBS, got canceled
10:38
Speaker 1: and said I'm going over to I m B TV
10:41
Speaker 1: where I am dB TV, which I didn't know was
10:43
Speaker 1: the thing. No, I don't think anybody did. So everybody's
10:46
Speaker 1: like a good, good move, Judge Judy. But she didn't
10:49
Speaker 1: ask her bailiff of twenty five years to come to
10:53
Speaker 1: her show and apparently didn't talk about it at all.
10:56
Speaker 1: And she had announced that she was doing this show
11:00
Speaker 1: before the end of her twenty fifth season, so they
11:02
Speaker 1: filmed the entire twenty fifth season together, and she just
11:05
Speaker 1: never mentioned it that she was starting this other show
11:08
Speaker 1: and he wasn't invited. So, um, his feelings were definitely hurt.
11:11
Speaker 1: And I think he was a little bewildered and sad,
11:14
Speaker 1: and I think felt a little betrayed by that. Yeah.
11:17
Speaker 1: I saw that too. I saw that the reason she
11:20
Speaker 1: gave was that they can't afford your salary. And he said, well,
11:25
Speaker 1: no one even talked to me about it. I probably
11:27
Speaker 1: would have taken less, but it wasn't offered. Uh. And
11:29
Speaker 1: he also said that in twenty five years, she never
11:31
Speaker 1: like invited me to one celebrity shin dig or one
11:34
Speaker 1: like social lunch. Right. Yeah, but he said, but I
11:38
Speaker 1: wish her well, and you know, he didn't want to
11:39
Speaker 1: drag her through the money. You know, he was a
11:41
Speaker 1: class that He basically was just saying, like we were
11:43
Speaker 1: professional colleagues, we weren't friends, and she was just like,
11:47
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just moving on with a new cast, and
11:50
Speaker 1: it is what it is. Like I said, I never
11:51
Speaker 1: watched it. What I did watch a lot as a
11:54
Speaker 1: ten to twelve year old was the People's Court. Yeah.
11:59
Speaker 1: I don't know why I love that show as it
12:01
Speaker 1: was on right after school and I watched me a
12:04
Speaker 1: lot of Judge Wapner and a lot of Rusty Barrell
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Speaker 1: is bailiff and Rusty Barrell has the first celebrity bailiff
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Speaker 1: and by far the most prolific celebrity bailiff of all time.
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Speaker 1: He actually was a real bailiff in court for Los
12:20
Speaker 1: Angeles County. So was a bird. Oh yeah, Bert, Yes,
12:23
Speaker 1: you're right, you're right. He was from Manhattan. That's how
12:25
Speaker 1: he knew judge duty was. They worked in an actual
12:28
Speaker 1: court together before she had a TV show. Um Rusty
12:31
Speaker 1: Barrell worked in in l A County courts. He actually
12:34
Speaker 1: guarded the courtroom during the Manson trial. He was legit
12:38
Speaker 1: um but he became the celebrity bailiff on divorce Court
12:42
Speaker 1: first from nineteen fifty seven and nineteen sixty nine. And
12:46
Speaker 1: it just so happened that he worked with um Uh,
12:49
Speaker 1: a lawyer by the last name of Wapner during that
12:52
Speaker 1: time on that show, and that lawyer Wapner would go
12:56
Speaker 1: on to have a son named Judge Joseph A. Wapner
12:58
Speaker 1: who would become the People's Court judge. Right, that's right. Uh.
13:03
Speaker 1: And they worked together on People's Court and then uh
13:07
Speaker 1: judge Wattner's Animal Court. And he said, most prolific. I
13:11
Speaker 1: was doing the math real quick because Bird was in
13:13
Speaker 1: there twenty five years, but it looks like twenty six
13:17
Speaker 1: years for Rusty. Oh wow, it was twelve on divorce Court,
13:21
Speaker 1: twelve on People's Court. And the boy that Animal Court
13:24
Speaker 1: that pushed him over the edge was that the shark
13:27
Speaker 1: that got jump. I don't know. I mean it was
13:30
Speaker 1: two years. I bet it wasn't very good, but they
13:32
Speaker 1: count as two more years, so one more year than Bird. Uh.
13:35
Speaker 1: And apparently Wattner at one point an interview said when
13:37
Speaker 1: they were originally doing the People's Court casting that the
13:41
Speaker 1: executive producer said that he wanted to sexy, give me
13:43
Speaker 1: a sexy girl as the bailiff, but Wattner was like, no,
13:47
Speaker 1: let's let's use this real bailiff my dad worked with.
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Speaker 1: And he did, and the rest is history. Should we
13:54
Speaker 1: take a break, we should. We're gonna take a break, everybody,
13:56
Speaker 1: and not keep you in suspense. We're gonna come back
13:59
Speaker 1: and talk about court reporters. Alright, Chuck, So core reporters
14:30
Speaker 1: are um, you said that bailiffs were the least interesting,
14:33
Speaker 1: So core reporters are the most interesting to you. I
14:36
Speaker 1: think court reporters and sketch artists are definitely interesting to me.
14:40
Speaker 1: But boy, I love this court reporting section. I thought
14:44
Speaker 1: it was super interesting. Uh, the machinery and the history,
14:51
Speaker 1: and that this the fact that they are play a
14:53
Speaker 1: real civic duty, uh in recording history. And that's one
14:58
Speaker 1: of the first points Olivia makes is in uh Neo
15:01
Speaker 1: Babylonian Mesopotamia, they kept legal records on clay tablets, and
15:06
Speaker 1: these weren't just like, uh so we'll know what happened
15:09
Speaker 1: in this court case. It was, but it was recording history,
15:13
Speaker 1: like it was recording precedent and all that stuff was
15:15
Speaker 1: really important from the beginning. Yeah, for for the Mesopotamians,
15:20
Speaker 1: the Babylonians, they weren't saying, like, we gotta preserve this
15:22
Speaker 1: this amazing verdict about this land dispute for posterity, Like
15:27
Speaker 1: this was how like on this clay tablet was how
15:29
Speaker 1: somebody could prove that no, my family owns this land.
15:33
Speaker 1: It was decided back in five b c UM and
15:38
Speaker 1: my family owns this land. Look at the cunea formed
15:41
Speaker 1: tablet um, we get a hand truck and I'll be
15:44
Speaker 1: right back right exactly. But the the it just turned
15:47
Speaker 1: out that that they kept such meticulous records and they survived,
15:51
Speaker 1: and we figured out how to read Kennea formed that um.
15:54
Speaker 1: That that we learned a lot about the Babylonians and
15:57
Speaker 1: how they dealt with law and agricult sure um and
16:01
Speaker 1: land disputes and traditions and customs and all that thanks
16:04
Speaker 1: to writing that down through legal documents. And we actually
16:08
Speaker 1: understand a lot about a lot of things based on
16:10
Speaker 1: court documents. Like do you remember when we were talking
16:13
Speaker 1: about the Salem witch trials in that episode and we
16:16
Speaker 1: were saying, like, we we understand it very much because
16:20
Speaker 1: it was extensively documented, but it was documented through court cases,
16:24
Speaker 1: and there's just certain ways that you preserve facts and
16:27
Speaker 1: information when you're documenting it through a court record, that's
16:31
Speaker 1: just not the same. It doesn't give you the full picture,
16:33
Speaker 1: um compared to you know, rounding out with journals and
16:36
Speaker 1: diaries and stuff like that. But it's still way way
16:40
Speaker 1: better than nothing. But what struck me is weird, Chuck,
16:43
Speaker 1: is that the idea of recording stuff like that, which
16:46
Speaker 1: seems like, of course you're going to do that. It
16:48
Speaker 1: got lost for a while. Yeah. Here in the United
16:52
Speaker 1: States during the colonial period, they were like you mentioned
16:55
Speaker 1: diaries and stuff. That's kind of what they relied on was,
16:58
Speaker 1: you know, whenever a lawyer or a judge might happen
17:01
Speaker 1: to keep personal notebooks about stuff, they would use that.
17:04
Speaker 1: But they didn't officially decree like, this is something we
17:07
Speaker 1: need to do. I think it was the early eighteen
17:11
Speaker 1: hundreds that they said, no, this is a problem when
17:14
Speaker 1: we can't just rely on whoever happens to want to
17:16
Speaker 1: take notes and save them. Uh, judges, you need to
17:20
Speaker 1: start writing your verdicts down on paper at least and
17:23
Speaker 1: not just say them out loud. And the judges are like, uh,
17:27
Speaker 1: Probably because judges didn't really feel like doing that is
17:30
Speaker 1: gave rise to actual court reporting. Yeah, think about this, chuck.
17:32
Speaker 1: You know how like emphatic like older men are when
17:36
Speaker 1: they're just they just know they're right. Like, think about
17:39
Speaker 1: the cluster that would arise when some judge just knew
17:43
Speaker 1: he remembered a verdict correctly and those totally wrong. Like
17:47
Speaker 1: that was the state of the early American court system
17:51
Speaker 1: before they finally said, like the beginning of the nineteenth century,
17:54
Speaker 1: when they finally said, no, we we need to write
17:56
Speaker 1: this down, like if you put yourself in that situation,
17:58
Speaker 1: I can't imagine how many terrible outcomes there were from that.
18:03
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think it was an eighteen o four one,
18:05
Speaker 1: Massachusetts finally enacted a law that said the governor has
18:10
Speaker 1: the authority to appoint someone quote learned in the law
18:13
Speaker 1: to obtain true and authentic reports of the of the decisions.
18:17
Speaker 1: In eighteen seventeen was when Congress finally passed a law
18:21
Speaker 1: saying the Supreme Court at the very least has to
18:24
Speaker 1: have an official court reporter. Said yeah, yeah, Supreme Court,
18:27
Speaker 1: you get on that too. It's something I didn't realize.
18:29
Speaker 1: I thought it was pretty interesting, is that, Um, before
18:32
Speaker 1: that people did document court reports, is particularly of the
18:35
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, but they were just like freelance mos who
18:39
Speaker 1: showed up and sat there and documented it themselves to
18:41
Speaker 1: turn around and sell to whoever wanted that that kind
18:44
Speaker 1: of information. So it was like, um, it was it
18:47
Speaker 1: was willy nilly, I think is the term for that.
18:51
Speaker 1: And you might ask who would want to buy that? Uh,
18:54
Speaker 1: you know, law schools, attorneys, bobbies, right, constant bailiffs, bailiff's
19:03
Speaker 1: Bailey's So finally, finally, at the end of the nineteenth century,
19:08
Speaker 1: everybody's like, all right, we're on board with this idea
19:10
Speaker 1: about actually recording the decisions of the court. And let's
19:13
Speaker 1: go a little further. Let's let's record every single minute detail,
19:18
Speaker 1: down to gestures, down to somebody sitting quietly when asked
19:22
Speaker 1: a question. And um, that's where court reporting was actually born,
19:28
Speaker 1: was in the end of the nineteenth century. Yeah, when
19:31
Speaker 1: the National Shorthand Reporters Association was formed. And I think
19:36
Speaker 1: this is one of the reasons that spoke to me
19:37
Speaker 1: a little bit because I took a course in high
19:40
Speaker 1: school called speed writing. Oh well, there we go, speedwriting, type, typing,
19:47
Speaker 1: and um, I can't remember the third thing. It's one
19:49
Speaker 1: of those classes that that you know that you spent
19:51
Speaker 1: time doing three different things. Oh a checkbook that was
19:58
Speaker 1: in there. I don't that was that class anyway. Speed
20:02
Speaker 1: writing was, um no, but I did take kommack. Um
20:06
Speaker 1: I wasn't. It wasn't official shorthand as we're about to
20:11
Speaker 1: talk about. It was. It was a kind of shorthand though,
20:15
Speaker 1: um and the funniest thing I remember from that class.
20:19
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't think I should say her
20:21
Speaker 1: name is my old friend. She would probably think it's funny,
20:24
Speaker 1: it wouldn't care, but I won't say her name. But
20:26
Speaker 1: she sat next to me in class, and we used
20:28
Speaker 1: always cut up and she did not learn UM. She
20:33
Speaker 1: learned the shorthand, but not such that she could take
20:36
Speaker 1: the test, which was basically a teacher would just dictate things.
20:39
Speaker 1: You would write it in shorthand and then transcribe it
20:42
Speaker 1: back in long form UM. But she was really really
20:45
Speaker 1: fast at writing, so she would write it all in
20:48
Speaker 1: regular longhand and then take the time to transcribe it
20:52
Speaker 1: to shorthand and then turn them in reverse order. And
20:59
Speaker 1: now you got busted though, And that was technically cheating UM.
21:02
Speaker 1: And always felt bad for my unnamed friend. Was really fast,
21:07
Speaker 1: didn't account for something. Yeah, I mean it was she
21:10
Speaker 1: should have gotten an A for effort at least. But yeah,
21:12
Speaker 1: if she went back and transcribed it using a book,
21:15
Speaker 1: that's that's cheating chuck a book. Oh well, then yes
21:19
Speaker 1: she should have gotten an A. She just needed more time.
21:23
Speaker 1: It's like if you were in a German class and
21:26
Speaker 1: you had to just write down in English what they
21:28
Speaker 1: were saying in German, writing the German first and then
21:31
Speaker 1: taking your time to transcribe it. Yah know, I got
21:34
Speaker 1: what you're saying for sure, And I dispute the teacher
21:37
Speaker 1: having a book involved. But shorthand is fascinating to me.
21:41
Speaker 1: And as a very long history going back to Cicero's
21:45
Speaker 1: enslaved servant, Marcus Julius Tiro in six b c E
21:51
Speaker 1: developed a Latin shorthand became known as tyroni in notes,
21:56
Speaker 1: and these were symbols. They were like four thousand symbols,
21:59
Speaker 1: and they you know, it was basically the earliest version
22:02
Speaker 1: of shorthand. Yeah, and apparently medieval monks got ahold of
22:05
Speaker 1: it and turned it into thirteen thousand symbols. Of course
22:09
Speaker 1: they did so, um, yeah, because they had a lot
22:11
Speaker 1: of time on their hand time. Um. And there's like
22:15
Speaker 1: a real value in developing shorthand. So there was all
22:19
Speaker 1: sorts of shorthand systems that were developed over the time.
22:22
Speaker 1: But as far as court reporting goes, it wasn't until
22:25
Speaker 1: a guy named John Robert Greg got into the mix
22:28
Speaker 1: in the late nineteenth century, UM, and he developed a
22:33
Speaker 1: Greg method of shorthand writing that was so useful and
22:38
Speaker 1: so popular he actually opened schools around the country. I
22:42
Speaker 1: saw him described as a tycoon where basically, if you
22:46
Speaker 1: were a secretary, if you were involved in anything that
22:50
Speaker 1: that that involved transcribing or taking dictation or any job
22:55
Speaker 1: like that, you basically could not get the job until
22:57
Speaker 1: you had a GREG certificate. And so you had to
23:00
Speaker 1: go pay to take those classes and be trained like
23:04
Speaker 1: it was just the way it was. And then along
23:07
Speaker 1: came Miles Bartholome You, who basically ruined everything for John
23:10
Speaker 1: Robert Creig and his heirs. No, not so you would
23:14
Speaker 1: think the court reporter Miles barthol of You, by inventing
23:17
Speaker 1: the first stenotype machine, would have made uh speedwriting in
23:22
Speaker 1: shorthand go the way of the Dodo, But that did
23:24
Speaker 1: not happen. Uh. And Livia points out very stuteley that
23:28
Speaker 1: today there are still some court reporters who do pen
23:32
Speaker 1: and paper shorthand and ostensibly because as as we'll see,
23:36
Speaker 1: it's really hard to learn how to master that machine.
23:40
Speaker 1: And if you're really good at shorthand, and you can
23:42
Speaker 1: write two hundred words a minute using shorthand, then just
23:46
Speaker 1: have plenty of pins and paper and go at. Yeah,
23:48
Speaker 1: if you can write two hundred words a minute, you're
23:49
Speaker 1: probably generally keeping up. But from the the stenography machines
23:55
Speaker 1: or the steno um is what they're called machine shorthand
23:59
Speaker 1: like you can, if you know what you're doing, you
24:01
Speaker 1: can do three d words a minute. And that's when
24:03
Speaker 1: you're doing like some high quality court reporting work. Yeah.
24:07
Speaker 1: I get a feeling that the pen and paper might
24:10
Speaker 1: be some of these small town courts that you know
24:13
Speaker 1: what I mean. Yeah, they they're bailiff is doing all
24:16
Speaker 1: sorts of other jobs. Their core reporter just has pen
24:19
Speaker 1: and paper. That's a giant mess basically in these small
24:22
Speaker 1: I mean, but it makes sense, you know. Uh. And
24:24
Speaker 1: before we move onto the stinto we do need to
24:26
Speaker 1: shout out the that weird, uh gas mask looking thing
24:31
Speaker 1: that you see sometimes the stino mass and that's the
24:34
Speaker 1: thing that you speak into but they can't hear you speaking,
24:38
Speaker 1: and it records, you know, it records you saying the
24:40
Speaker 1: real words. Yeah. I think my issue with that is
24:43
Speaker 1: not even the shape or the look of the mask.
24:46
Speaker 1: It's the color of the material they use. It's always
24:49
Speaker 1: this weird clinical medical tan color. It's like have you
24:55
Speaker 1: heard of yellow or blue. This is a job that
25:00
Speaker 1: I thought when might be fun as a retirement job
25:02
Speaker 1: for me. Yeah. Uh, but I would not be able
25:06
Speaker 1: to do it without my own commentary, So it would
25:08
Speaker 1: just be a little very low voice like and and
25:11
Speaker 1: you know this attorney objects, Oh god, this guy again.
25:15
Speaker 1: He thinks he's all that. Yeah, I don't think we can.
25:19
Speaker 1: I don't think you can do that. I think you
25:20
Speaker 1: just need to say what people are saying. Well, that's
25:22
Speaker 1: a talent in and of itself. It depends. So I
25:24
Speaker 1: was looking into those Steno masks and I was like,
25:26
Speaker 1: so how does this work? So you're actually when you're
25:29
Speaker 1: wearing that mask, it's part part muffler, part silence or
25:32
Speaker 1: like the people around you can't hear you. That's why
25:34
Speaker 1: that mask is so big. But all you're doing is
25:36
Speaker 1: restating what the people are You're you're doing vocal commentary
25:40
Speaker 1: on what's going on. Okay, that makes sense. But then
25:44
Speaker 1: you're like, well wait a minute, are there like transcriptions? Yes,
25:47
Speaker 1: that means that you have to go back listen to
25:50
Speaker 1: what you recorded, type it up as you're listening, and
25:54
Speaker 1: turn it into a clean transcript. So you're basically doubling
25:57
Speaker 1: the work with the Steno steno mask. Oh, I thought
26:00
Speaker 1: it had. I thought it was a machine that just
26:02
Speaker 1: did it for you. Now it does. But when Force
26:05
Speaker 1: Wells invented that thing in World War Two, it did
26:07
Speaker 1: not have that machine. So it was a really clugey
26:11
Speaker 1: process that took a lot of time. But the reason
26:14
Speaker 1: they did it is because it was so highly accurate
26:16
Speaker 1: and it could produce so many like comments and details
26:20
Speaker 1: and observations that you might just miss that if you
26:24
Speaker 1: were typing or writing shorthand right. So it was a
26:27
Speaker 1: lot of effort, but it seemed to be worth the effort. Uh.
26:30
Speaker 1: Livia found a court reporter from Cleveland named Todd L.
26:33
Speaker 1: Peterson who wrote some stuff. I think his name, sorry,
26:35
Speaker 1: it's person. Oh do say Peterson? This person with two
26:40
Speaker 1: s s. Yeah, But he said basically, you know, if
26:44
Speaker 1: you're just talking about a regular person, they speaking about
26:47
Speaker 1: a hundred and eighty words a minute. But then you
26:49
Speaker 1: have multiple people speaking, you have people talking over each other,
26:52
Speaker 1: people interrupting each other. Uh, it can get up to
26:55
Speaker 1: three hundred actual words a minute. And if you're one
26:59
Speaker 1: of the best typist around, you max out. You know,
27:02
Speaker 1: in the in the low one hundreds basically, and uh,
27:07
Speaker 1: you also have to say who was speaking to the
27:09
Speaker 1: name of the person you're in there for, you know,
27:11
Speaker 1: eight to ten hours at a time, and it's a
27:13
Speaker 1: brutal job. This machine is, uh, it's a crazy piece
27:19
Speaker 1: of machinery because it doesn't it's not like a little
27:23
Speaker 1: tiny typewriter. It is twenty two blank keys and a
27:26
Speaker 1: blank number bar and you are playing it like a piano. Basically,
27:33
Speaker 1: you're not saying, you're not spelling out words one letter
27:36
Speaker 1: at a time. You're doing it all at the same time.
27:38
Speaker 1: And it's it's it's just a miracle how anyone ever
27:41
Speaker 1: learns how to use this thing. Yeah that that um,
27:44
Speaker 1: that hundred and ten word a minute typist is using
27:47
Speaker 1: a quarty keyboard like you and I use on our computers.
27:51
Speaker 1: And apparently, um, because the rate of speech is a
27:55
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty words per minute. That means that if
27:57
Speaker 1: you're typing on a normal keyboard, you start to fall
27:59
Speaker 1: by mind at the first after the first ten seconds,
28:02
Speaker 1: and you just get further and further behind. Right with
28:05
Speaker 1: the machine you're talking about, the stenography machine with just
28:08
Speaker 1: twenty two keys in that blank number bar. The way
28:10
Speaker 1: that set up is you've got the beginning consonant sounds
28:14
Speaker 1: that are being worked on the left hand the left side,
28:17
Speaker 1: on your right hand, on the right side are the
28:20
Speaker 1: ending consonant sounds, and in the middle are the syllables
28:24
Speaker 1: or the vault the vowels that um that you use
28:27
Speaker 1: your thumb to type, that go in the middle of
28:28
Speaker 1: the words. So that means, because of the placement of
28:31
Speaker 1: the keys, you can press all these these keys at
28:35
Speaker 1: once and compose a word all at once, rather than
28:39
Speaker 1: one letter at a time. No matter how fast you're
28:41
Speaker 1: typing on a quarty keyboard, you're still ultimately typing one
28:44
Speaker 1: letter at a time. With a stenography machine, you're typing
28:48
Speaker 1: an entire word all at once. Basically, yes. And that's
28:53
Speaker 1: why in a courtroom they can ask for the stenographer
28:57
Speaker 1: to read back, the court reporter to read back something
29:00
Speaker 1: that's just been said, which has been used in countless
29:05
Speaker 1: TV comedies and movie comedies throughout history. It's always a
29:08
Speaker 1: great gag when something dumb happens in court and the
29:11
Speaker 1: court reporter, in the very monotone reads back what has
29:14
Speaker 1: just happened, like airplane airplane two. I can't remember what
29:18
Speaker 1: the joke was but I know there was one in that.
29:21
Speaker 1: I'm sure they did. That's a trope. It's been in
29:23
Speaker 1: a million movies. It's one of the great jokes. So
29:25
Speaker 1: one of the things that they've done is said, they said, Okay,
29:27
Speaker 1: the stenography machine is amazing, and the people who who
29:31
Speaker 1: use these things and can type three hundred plus words
29:34
Speaker 1: a minute are are magical human beings there. But um,
29:38
Speaker 1: we not have technology that can make these things even
29:40
Speaker 1: more outstanding, and that is that while you're typing. Uh.
29:45
Speaker 1: And apparently, by the way, people who are typing who
29:48
Speaker 1: are masters of a stenography machine, um, they can they
29:53
Speaker 1: type with like accuracy at three hundred words a minute.
29:56
Speaker 1: So it's just fantastic. So they have these things plugged
29:59
Speaker 1: in now to a computer that's basically adding time stamps, um,
30:04
Speaker 1: putting the person's name after like next to who's speaking
30:07
Speaker 1: at any given point, um, And then they take that
30:10
Speaker 1: and transfer it. They send it out to a real
30:12
Speaker 1: time live feed to like the judges computer, the lawyer's computers, um,
30:16
Speaker 1: so that everybody who needs one in the courtroom sees
30:20
Speaker 1: the transcript as it's happening, basically almost entirely in real time.
30:26
Speaker 1: Pretty cool. It is pretty cool. And then the one
30:28
Speaker 1: last technology I saw a chuck is that, um, they
30:32
Speaker 1: have a speech to text now, so that now, finally
30:37
Speaker 1: those stunno masks are actually a valuable tool, and I
30:40
Speaker 1: believe they're starting to come back. Those on your phone,
30:44
Speaker 1: Yeah basically, but you just need a muffler silencer mask
30:47
Speaker 1: to attach to your phone and you'd be you'd be
30:49
Speaker 1: right there for a court reporter. Yeah, that those are
30:53
Speaker 1: remarkably accurate on the phone. I found. Yeah, it's pretty
30:56
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. But there are some things where they kind
30:59
Speaker 1: of lack, um, like if you are if you weren't
31:02
Speaker 1: using just the court reports. Some apparently some courts have
31:05
Speaker 1: said let's just set up some microphones in the court
31:08
Speaker 1: and have an AI transcribe this and and just not
31:12
Speaker 1: you know, take the court reporter out of the whole
31:13
Speaker 1: thing in the stentle mask. Get rid of that ugly
31:16
Speaker 1: stentle mask. And they found that the AI can't do
31:19
Speaker 1: things like understand accents, um, especially if it's a thick
31:23
Speaker 1: accent when people talk over each other. It just throws
31:26
Speaker 1: its hands up. Um. If if you want, if you
31:30
Speaker 1: ask an AI to to read it back, that can
31:33
Speaker 1: be a problem, or the AI can't ask you to
31:37
Speaker 1: repeat yourself. That's another one too. So if you are
31:41
Speaker 1: a court reporter, you're getting me making should be three
31:45
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year. Should be asked me to learn
31:49
Speaker 1: that machine because it takes uh, it's this, you know.
31:53
Speaker 1: I guess it depends on how fast of a learning
31:55
Speaker 1: you are. But Mr person says six months to learn
31:58
Speaker 1: those key strokes and a a couple of years to
32:01
Speaker 1: really get good at it. That's that's a lot of
32:04
Speaker 1: time put in. UM. I think the median pay is
32:08
Speaker 1: about sixty one grand as of May. You can also
32:12
Speaker 1: get a little side hustle going doing uh depots maybe,
32:18
Speaker 1: although I think most of those are usually video recorded
32:20
Speaker 1: because my friend does that for a living. Um, but
32:25
Speaker 1: sixty one grand should be more. That's all I'm saying.
32:27
Speaker 1: I'll bet they do both. I'll bet the video record them.
32:30
Speaker 1: But I'm sure they have transcripts. Is because it's so
32:32
Speaker 1: much easier to scan a transcript definement you're looking for
32:35
Speaker 1: almost to his or just video. There's no court reporter
32:37
Speaker 1: on there. That's interesting. It probably depends on the again,
32:40
Speaker 1: the size of the case and the how much money
32:43
Speaker 1: you can throw at it, because it costs dough. Yeah,
32:46
Speaker 1: I can imagine. Uh, there was one person we should
32:49
Speaker 1: mention that. I kind of feel bad. But there's one
32:52
Speaker 1: part of this I did find funny. There was New
32:55
Speaker 1: York State Supreme Court Court reporter, let's say this, we
32:59
Speaker 1: don't even aim him, who had a drinking problem and
33:03
Speaker 1: it screwed up pretty big at a few trials. And
33:06
Speaker 1: it's not funny because he had a drinking problem. The
33:09
Speaker 1: only funny part is I can imagine them reading the
33:11
Speaker 1: transcript backed at some point when he just repeatedly typed
33:15
Speaker 1: I hate my job. I hate my job, over and
33:18
Speaker 1: over and over. Yeah. And apparently like he did this
33:21
Speaker 1: on some really important um trials and like he just
33:25
Speaker 1: didn't take notes for a couple of days and some
33:28
Speaker 1: of them and so now some guilty verdicts have been
33:31
Speaker 1: up for grabs, and they had chuck. They had reconstruction
33:35
Speaker 1: hearings where the judge brought the lawyers and the defendants
33:38
Speaker 1: at everybody back in and said, Okay, who remembers what
33:41
Speaker 1: about this? Because we're missing some really important parts of
33:45
Speaker 1: the record and we need to try to recreate it. Wow.
33:48
Speaker 1: And the thing that stuck me to was in this
33:51
Speaker 1: in a New York Post article on it. They interviewed
33:54
Speaker 1: his ex wife and she said it was that job
33:57
Speaker 1: that caused him to start drinking the first place. And
34:00
Speaker 1: I'm like, amen, because I gotta tell you, I can't
34:03
Speaker 1: think of too many more stressful jobs that don't involve
34:06
Speaker 1: an actual human life in your hands, like say like
34:09
Speaker 1: a heart surgeon or something than a court reporter. You think, yeah, man,
34:15
Speaker 1: the pressure to get everything right, not miss anything, not
34:18
Speaker 1: fall behind, and stay like that for eight hours at
34:21
Speaker 1: a stretch, you know, every day that you're working that
34:24
Speaker 1: that sounds like a very high pressure job. I don't know.
34:27
Speaker 1: I think from that thing that that account you sent
34:30
Speaker 1: of what they it was another insider account was it
34:34
Speaker 1: seemed a little more zen to me than that because
34:37
Speaker 1: what they he talked about was hearing but not listening.
34:42
Speaker 1: So you kind of have to go into this fugue
34:45
Speaker 1: state almost where you're hearing words but you're not listening,
34:49
Speaker 1: as if you're in a conversation with someone, because then
34:51
Speaker 1: you're investing even if you're not trying to, you're probably
34:55
Speaker 1: investing emotionally, and that'll get you out of your rhythm.
34:58
Speaker 1: You just have to you just to hear and let
35:01
Speaker 1: the words flow through your fingers. Yeah, yeah, pretty interesting,
35:04
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, it is, like it is any thing,
35:06
Speaker 1: but it takes a certain kind of person for sure. Yeah,
35:08
Speaker 1: and I'm sure, I'm sure not all of them can
35:10
Speaker 1: do it, but yeah, that would probably be the ideal
35:12
Speaker 1: way to do it, for sure. All Right, let's take
35:15
Speaker 1: our last break, and we're gonna come back and talk
35:17
Speaker 1: about those scrappy little sketch artists right after this. Alright, Uh,
35:48
Speaker 1: sketch artists are maybe the most unsung because there aren't
35:54
Speaker 1: many of them. Um. I was starting to think about
35:56
Speaker 1: court sketch artists, and you don't have them for every trial.
36:02
Speaker 1: It's not like a bailiff or a stenographer. You only
36:05
Speaker 1: get a sketch artist in there when it's something the
36:07
Speaker 1: media is interested in. And there's only so many of
36:10
Speaker 1: those trials. There's only so many big cities where those
36:14
Speaker 1: trials might be taking place, So there aren't that many
36:17
Speaker 1: court sketch artists anymore that are working. No, And yeah,
36:21
Speaker 1: the sketches that are produced, they're not ordered by the court,
36:24
Speaker 1: they're not part of the court record. They exist to
36:27
Speaker 1: two for the media to have some sort of visual
36:29
Speaker 1: information to accompany reports of like court cases, which makes sense,
36:33
Speaker 1: but I never really thought about that before. Yeah, and
36:36
Speaker 1: that's it. And it started because there weren't cameras. Uh.
36:40
Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty nine, it was John Brown's trial in
36:43
Speaker 1: Virginia and there was a national magazine that sent illustrators
36:47
Speaker 1: to cover this, and that was kind of where the
36:49
Speaker 1: whole thing started. When cameras did come around, they put
36:52
Speaker 1: him in the courtroom and the trial of the century,
36:56
Speaker 1: the first trial of the century, uh, the Limberg baby
36:58
Speaker 1: kidnapping with Bruno Holtman was chaos with those huge cameras
37:04
Speaker 1: and flashbulbs and court reporter and photographers just like apparently
37:08
Speaker 1: climbing on tables to get good shots. It was just
37:11
Speaker 1: it was a zoo in there. So he said he
37:13
Speaker 1: couldn't even get a fair trial because of these camera people.
37:17
Speaker 1: And even though that argument didn't work, Uh, the A
37:20
Speaker 1: b A said, you know what, no more cameras in
37:22
Speaker 1: the courtrooms. Um. Generally this is the American Bar Association,
37:27
Speaker 1: so they don't they can't lay down the law. But usually,
37:31
Speaker 1: I mean some are televised and sometimes there's cameras. I know,
37:34
Speaker 1: we'll watch the O J trial, but most times you're
37:37
Speaker 1: gonna see a sketch come out on the five o'clock news. Yeah,
37:41
Speaker 1: I mean because the A B. A said there shouldn't
37:43
Speaker 1: be cameras in the courtroom a lot of states and
37:46
Speaker 1: the federal government said, yeah, you're you're absolutely right. And
37:49
Speaker 1: so that actually was one of those rare instances where
37:52
Speaker 1: like the predecessor came back in style. And yeah, I
37:55
Speaker 1: guess in the sixties, TV news was not a huge
37:59
Speaker 1: thing until the civil rights era. Um, until the assassination
38:04
Speaker 1: of JFK and the ensuing assassination of Jack Ruby. Um,
38:09
Speaker 1: like the sixties is kind of supercharged the reason for
38:12
Speaker 1: there to be TV news, and um, the people who
38:17
Speaker 1: are doing the news needed, like if they couldn't get
38:20
Speaker 1: cameras in the courtroom, they still needed some visual and
38:22
Speaker 1: so that gave like a real boost to two courtroom
38:25
Speaker 1: sketch artists as well. Yeah, I think the Jack Ruby
38:28
Speaker 1: trial is a man named Howard Brody very famously sketched
38:33
Speaker 1: that one, and he went on to do RFK and
38:37
Speaker 1: mlk's assassinations. Then there was a man named Bill Roebols
38:41
Speaker 1: who has done some pretty famous ones. I like his stuff.
38:44
Speaker 1: He did the Manson trial, and if you look at
38:46
Speaker 1: those sketches online. He kind of has a Ralph Steadman
38:50
Speaker 1: quality to him. Oh yeah, yeah, it's it's pretty cool stuff.
38:53
Speaker 1: The is that the guy who did the Manson leaping
38:56
Speaker 1: at the judge? Yes, yeah, so, um so yeah. So
39:01
Speaker 1: they're like, I think there are courtroom sketch artists that
39:03
Speaker 1: have kind of made names for themselves, especially among the media.
39:07
Speaker 1: But what they will do is sit there and and
39:09
Speaker 1: you know, draw, um the scenes in the court. Believe
39:13
Speaker 1: it or not, that's what these sketch artists are doing
39:15
Speaker 1: all day. They sit around and draw. But then but
39:18
Speaker 1: it's it's harder than it sounds because very frequently there
39:22
Speaker 1: are um, there's not a lot of visual action going
39:26
Speaker 1: on in like the courtroom. It's very it's not rare necessarily,
39:31
Speaker 1: but it's not happening every moment. So they can't count
39:34
Speaker 1: on Charles Manson to always be jumping over a table exactly.
39:37
Speaker 1: So the court the court sketch artist has to basically
39:40
Speaker 1: have a real eye for nuance and facial expression and
39:45
Speaker 1: and to figure out how to capture visually a subtle
39:48
Speaker 1: exchange that can maybe change the momentum of a court
39:50
Speaker 1: case or something like that, and then present it. Then
39:53
Speaker 1: they have to do it in a way that looks good,
39:56
Speaker 1: and they have to do it quickly, and then when
39:58
Speaker 1: they're done, they have to run out. Well, up until
40:00
Speaker 1: probably the last few decades, they had to run outside
40:03
Speaker 1: and the TV news crewise would film the um the
40:06
Speaker 1: sketches that they made for that day for the evening news. Yeah,
40:10
Speaker 1: and you know, they don't have a special chair like
40:13
Speaker 1: the stenographer does, or a special place to stand. I mean,
40:17
Speaker 1: I think in some courts they accommodate them as best
40:20
Speaker 1: they can. I think there was this one article for
40:22
Speaker 1: Mental Floss where one of the court reporters, Vicky ellen Behringer,
40:27
Speaker 1: said that, uh, they would give her a place to
40:30
Speaker 1: sit sometimes in the jury box if there was room.
40:33
Speaker 1: But sometimes you're just out there with everyone else and
40:36
Speaker 1: you're you know, you might have somebody with a big
40:38
Speaker 1: giant head in front of you. You gotta you gotta
40:40
Speaker 1: really work on the fly, and like you said, work fast.
40:44
Speaker 1: I mentioned, it's not a whole lot of people doing it.
40:47
Speaker 1: I think Robols was interviewed like three or four years ago.
40:50
Speaker 1: He said he's working a lot, but he's just one
40:52
Speaker 1: of two in Los Angeles. So and I thought that
40:56
Speaker 1: just sounded astounding, but again, if you think about the
40:59
Speaker 1: media covered trials, so just aren't that many of them.
41:01
Speaker 1: So you don't need hundreds and thousands of sketch artists
41:04
Speaker 1: around the country just to pick up work. Sketch artists
41:07
Speaker 1: are becoming bailiffs. Yeah, the bailiffs like got the gun
41:13
Speaker 1: in one hand and sketching on the other. It's tough, man,
41:16
Speaker 1: it's tough out there. So, um, one of the places
41:22
Speaker 1: you can get work, if you're a reliable sketch artist
41:24
Speaker 1: is by drawing the Supreme Court because you just aren't
41:27
Speaker 1: going to get a camera in there. Like anybody who
41:30
Speaker 1: listens to MPR News is familiar with Nina Totenberg's like
41:33
Speaker 1: play by play of um Supreme Court arguments and discussions,
41:38
Speaker 1: and she's kind of like a verbal sketch artist. But um,
41:42
Speaker 1: the point is here there's not any media allowed in
41:44
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. Champ just today with the abortion proceedings.
41:50
Speaker 1: I was looking at pictures. I saw some last night
41:53
Speaker 1: of the sketch artists and it was probably done by
41:57
Speaker 1: Arthur Lean. Arthur maybe the only person to him for
42:00
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, but I know that he does the
42:04
Speaker 1: Scotus blog and h for NBC, so maybe they probably
42:09
Speaker 1: let more than one end for something this big, but
42:11
Speaker 1: apparently it's uh court reporters have round or I'm sorry. Um.
42:14
Speaker 1: Sketch artists have roundly said it's a lot easier to
42:17
Speaker 1: draw someone like Charles Manson than it is to draw
42:21
Speaker 1: some just sort of normal looking normal I don't know,
42:26
Speaker 1: like Tom Brady or something like that. Yeah, that was
42:30
Speaker 1: very famous. Jane Rosenberg sketch Tom tom Brady almost that
42:34
Speaker 1: Tom Barringer um during the deflate Gate proceedings and and
42:40
Speaker 1: it was, you know, Tom Brady is a traditionally a
42:42
Speaker 1: handsome person, and he looked a little bit like Lurch
42:45
Speaker 1: and it became a meme and it was pretty funny.
42:47
Speaker 1: The best one I saw, the best of me my
42:49
Speaker 1: saw was um, that sketch of Tom Brady photoshopped onto
42:53
Speaker 1: the Hunchback from Hunchback and Notre Dame the Disney movie.
42:57
Speaker 1: Really it was perfect. If she got a lot of
43:01
Speaker 1: press out of that, she did the others. Best one
43:03
Speaker 1: I saw was that sketch of Tom Brady's head on
43:06
Speaker 1: the potato Jesus meme right right. The fit pretty well. Team. Uh.
43:12
Speaker 1: The final little thing here that Livia found, which I
43:14
Speaker 1: thought was pretty great in a testament to how good
43:18
Speaker 1: of work that she's doing for us so far. But
43:20
Speaker 1: she she found that they sometimes attorneys, and this doesn't
43:23
Speaker 1: surprise me. They will buy some of these sketches. I
43:26
Speaker 1: guess sometimes either if it's a famous case or early
43:28
Speaker 1: in their career and you know, have it framed, so
43:31
Speaker 1: you know, just I think it's just sort of a
43:34
Speaker 1: symbolic thing because there they all, even though they have
43:37
Speaker 1: different styles, you can always tell a courtroom sketch. Oh
43:40
Speaker 1: you don't think to have a framed courtroom sketch of
43:42
Speaker 1: yourself and you finally make it as an attorney is
43:44
Speaker 1: probably a pretty big deal. Yeah, especially if you're standing
43:46
Speaker 1: and pointing at the accused. Yeah, they're really dramatic like that. Sure,
43:52
Speaker 1: I've always wanted the Wall Street Journal to do a
43:55
Speaker 1: piece on us, so we could get a drawing of
43:57
Speaker 1: us like that. That's a really like um um, easily
44:00
Speaker 1: recognizable type of drawing too. Yeah, totally come on Wall
44:03
Speaker 1: Street or you know, Mad Magazine. Maybe it's defunct, Chuck,
44:08
Speaker 1: I know, but this guy's still draw They can bring
44:11
Speaker 1: him out her retirement. I want more Drucker. I think
44:14
Speaker 1: he passed away. But oh God, to be drawn by
44:16
Speaker 1: more drunk that would be pretty amazing. Or I'd take
44:18
Speaker 1: Jack Davis too. He did the ug A football um
44:22
Speaker 1: guy in the seventies. Now that's right. I got that
44:25
Speaker 1: coke bottle in my bar still any care? Maybe someday
44:29
Speaker 1: Chuck commemorative coke bottle. Uh. Well, since Chuck said commemorative
44:35
Speaker 1: coke bottle, I think that's it, which means it's time
44:38
Speaker 1: for a listener mail everybody. I'm gonna call this another
44:44
Speaker 1: dentistry email. This is from Kayla. Hey, guys, really enjoyed
44:47
Speaker 1: your episode about dentistry and currently a fourth year dental
44:49
Speaker 1: student in the US graduating in May. I don't want
44:53
Speaker 1: to add a couple of things here. Green Black was
44:55
Speaker 1: one of the fathers of dynastry that you mentioned, but
44:57
Speaker 1: you didn't say much about him. Green, commonly known as G. D.
45:02
Speaker 1: Black in the dental realm, invented the pedal driven dental
45:05
Speaker 1: drill and also outlined the best way to prepare tooth
45:08
Speaker 1: for cavity filling, which is still the method used today.
45:12
Speaker 1: And secondly, since you focused on the history of dynastry,
45:15
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention st uh Apollonia, the patron saint
45:19
Speaker 1: of Dynastry and the year two forty nine, Apollonia, a
45:22
Speaker 1: deaconess was beaten for refusing to renounce her faith, and
45:26
Speaker 1: the beating caused all of her teeth to shatter and
45:27
Speaker 1: fall out. She then elected to be burned alive instead
45:30
Speaker 1: of renounced her faith, and even jumped into the fire herself.
45:34
Speaker 1: After her death, she was made the patron state of
45:35
Speaker 1: Dentnastry and Toothaches and there's even a painting of her
45:38
Speaker 1: in the louver. And this is uh from Kayla, who
45:42
Speaker 1: was just introduced to the show last year by her
45:45
Speaker 1: brother and now was a big fan. Nice, thanks Kayla,
45:48
Speaker 1: Good luck Dynasty. Yeah, for sure, that's a that's one
45:52
Speaker 1: of those examples. I knew both of those, they just
45:54
Speaker 1: didn't make it in the show, and it's just so
45:57
Speaker 1: excruciating to be called out about those later on. It's
46:00
Speaker 1: okay to miss things. Well, thanks a lot, Kayla, and
46:02
Speaker 1: good luck with dental school. Uh, and thank you for
46:05
Speaker 1: writing in and welcome to the show, right, Chuck. That's right. Well,
46:10
Speaker 1: if you want to be like Kayla, you can send
46:12
Speaker 1: us an email to Stuff Podcast. Did I Heart radio
46:16
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46:21
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46:27
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