“In this People’s Court Only One Opinion Counts”

Section 2, p. 36

An account of the TV program “Judge Judy,” a woman that defendants have a hard time lying to (she says to one especially implausible defendant, “Look up here; Do you see ‘stupid’ written on my forehead?”). Judge Judy is actually retired supervising judge Judith Sheindlin of Manhattan Family Court, and author of Don’t Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It’s Raining. “Judge Sheindlin’s judicial style and philosophy can be summed up in a word. ‘It’s about structure,’ she said. ‘You start out by giving children structure the day they are born. They are born from a womb. As soon as they are born we swaddle them, tightly wrapped. Then when we take these babies home we put them in a small bassinet. There is a physiological reason for that. And the physiological reason for that is, people like structure.”