Objection!

Scott Hardie | July 18, 2012
Trial lawyers around here, and anyone familiar with the law in general: I'm still watching Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Like every TV courtroom drama, the trial dialogue is punctuated by shouts of "objection!" on a frequent basis. I've never observed a real trial, so I have no idea how realistic that is (I doubt much), but that's not really what I wonder about.

After seeing it so many times, I noticed that on TV, the judge never rules that an attorney's behavior is inappropriate until that "objection!" rings out. One attorney could be completely out of line, badgering a witness or testifying themselves or whatever, and the judge sits there silent until the opposing attorney objects. Is that an accurate portrayal of how it works in real life? I thought the role of the judge was to kept proceedings fair and legal, so why doesn't the judge step in sooner to stop that kind of behavior? Do certain objections by their nature have to be raised by counsel? Or is this just a case of the TV industry loving the word "objection!" so much that they downplay the role of the judge to allow it to be shouted more often?