By Brian M. Rafferty
Perhaps the kindest thing to say about the new CBS series “Queens Supreme” is that it has a great theme song.
Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns and Money” gives this hour-long mid-season dud an edgy feel and made me think that perhaps Oliver Platt’s second foray into a field with which I am very familiar could be better than the accursed “Deadline.” Sorry, Warren, but I don’t think you’ll be getting those royalty checks for too long.
“Queens Supreme,” filmed on location at the 19th century Long Island City Supreme Court building, and at Astoria’s Silvercup Studios, is an attempt to bring viewers into a behind-the-scenes peek at our borough’s judicial system.
The only honest moments in the show’s premiere Friday night came from supporting character Mike, a diminutive law clerk played by James Madio, who explained why he felt he needed to mouth off to a gun-wielding, hostage-taking juror.
The show is the brainchild of a pair of Queens lawyers, 35-year-old twins Dan and Peter Thomas, whose father is Queens Judge Stephen Thomas.
The main characters in the show are four judges, played by Oliver Platt, Robert Loggia, L. Scott Caldwell and Annabella Sciorra. Unlike “Law & Order” or most other legal dramas, we see these four judges outside of their courtrooms and get a glimpse into their own psyches, personal motivations and inner thoughts.
The premiere episode opened with Judge Jack Moran’s (Oliver Platt) wife Maude (Kirsten Johnson) hunting him down through the courthouse in an attempt to get him to sign his divorce papers.
The reason she couldn’t find him was that he was hiding in a bathroom with his law clerk, listening to the jury deliberate the case he had been hearing. Judge Thomas O’Neill (Robert Loggia) walked in and gave Moran a parental scolding when he found him in a clear ethical and, perhaps, legal violation of procedure.
“That was just shameful,” said a Kew Gardens attorney who did not wish his name to be printed because he not only knows the brothers who came up with the idea of the show, but must occasionally go before their father on the bench.
Unfortunately, the bathroom incident was just the beginning of blatant flaws in this show’s legal theme.
Having worked for several years as a reporter covering courts and as an editor assisting reporters covering court cases in Queens, I think I have a good understanding of legal procedure, courtroom decorum and how things work in this borough. I had assumed that a show conceived by two working lawyers would be fairly accurate. I was disappointed to see that was not the case.
Moran’s jury had been deliberating a civil court case for three days. The case involved a smoker who died at the age of 70 after joining a Smoke-enders-style program. He had a pre-existing heart condition and died when he quit cold turkey.
We never found out exactly who was being sued or why, but for some reason the seven jurors, who were obviously deadlocked due to the insistence of an individual juror (Thomas Ryan), had been forced to deliberate for three days when we first met them. For some other unexplained reason, Ryan hadn’t been able to have a cigarette for those three days.
In an effort to escape his wife and the divorce papers, Judge Moran ran off to his courtroom and called in the jury to discuss their being deadlocked. He was about to determine that the jury was hopelessly deadlocked, and declare a mistrial, when his clerk reminded him about his wife. Moran quickly changed his mind to the dismay of all the jurors, and to Ryan in particular.
All of this was done without certain people who would be required to be in the room any time a judge talks to the jury: the plaintiff, the defendant and their attorneys. At one point, the judge even told the court reporter, “This part isn’t for the record,” and sent her out of the courtroom. Come on. Suspension of disbelief is one thing, but that is entirely absurd.
Not as absurd, however, as what was soon to transpire.
Ryan, who is played by Lee Tergesen, the emotional actor who has been a standout as Tobias Beecher on HBO’s “Oz,” decided he was going to light a cigarette in the courtroom. The judge warned him not to with a threat of a fine (as opposed to a contempt of court charge), but Ryan lit the cigarette anyway.
Moran ordered the lone court officer (in Queens courts there are usually two or three) to take the cigarette from Ryan. Ryan punched the officer in the face, leapt over the rail that separates the jurors from the officer, tackled him, took his gun and proceeded to take the judge, clerk, officer and other jurors hostage.
OK, great. Here’s the chance for drama, tension, good acting and interesting twists, right? Sure, but does any of that happen? No. From that point forward, the show descended into depths I did not know were possible for television drama.
“Simply put, that situation would never present itself in a real courtroom,” the Kew Gardens attorney said. “That show was utterly without merit, and not at all grounded in reality.”
Since there were no other cases to be heard that entire day in that courtroom (a near impossibility), there was no threat of anybody actually walking in to find the hostage situation. Nobody, that is, except for the corner deli delivery guy (Vincent Pastore) who entered the courtroom through the door that leads to the judge’s chambers.
What seemed like hours went by before Ryan got angry enough to actually fire the gun, shooting out a window — the first time anybody outside the courtroom noticed that there may have been a problem.
With a hostage situation in a Supreme Court courtroom, the place would be buzzing with cops, SWAT teams, hostage negotiators and a slew of specialists whose only job is to diffuse these types of situations.
On “Queens Supreme,” the response team consisted of a single officer and a harried detective who told the other judges to evacuate the building and “just tell people that a gas main exploded.” Unbelievable. This was right up there with the World Trade Center bombing in “Die Hard with a Vengeance,” when a bomb went off in the subway below the WTC. The local cops were the only law enforcement presence at the scene and everybody left an hour later because it was time for a shift change.
Meanwhile, back in another “Queens Supreme” courtroom, a motion was being heard in a racial profiling case. A black man had been stopped by a black cop because the man had been running in a velour jogging suit in Forest Hills.
Every comment that the defense attorney made regarding the case was met with an objection — but not ones based in fact, law or procedure. Instead, they were just sarcastic remarks that essentially repeated what the defense attorney said.
“He was just running when he was stopped,” the defense attorney said.
“Objection, your honor,” the prosecutor chimed in. “Oh. I’m sure he was just running. Just running away from the scene of the crime, I bet.”
Forest Hills is bounded roughly by Yellowstone Boulevard to the west, the LIE to the north, the Grand Central to the east and Union Turnpike to the south. There was never a mention of where the man was running in Forest Hills, which was simply described as a rich neighborhood.
Also the officer, who had been on the beat in Forest Hills for seven years, said it was rare to see a black man in that part of the borough — again, suspend reality.
Back in the hostage situation, we found out (a good 40 minutes into the show and probably several hours into the hostage crisis) that Judge Moran was carrying a concealed handgun. From what I understand, that is not uncommon. What I would venture to guess would be unusual, however, was that shortly after we find out that the judge was packing heat, he decided to tell Ryan that he was armed, and gave him his own gun.
A few years ago, Oliver Platt starred in a short-lived TV show “Deadline,” set in a major metropolitan daily newspaper. I couldn’t take that show seriously, and neither did many other people, since it was canceled early in its run.
I’m afraid that — barring a major overhaul and a bit more reality — our borough’s courtroom presence on the small screen will face the same fate as the ill-fated “Deadline.”
I will say this about “Queens Supreme,” you can’t judge a show by one episode. This Friday’s follow-up to the premiere could make a 180-degree turn, bringing credibility to the courtroom, likability to the characters, any small amount of believability to the story line and more royalty checks for Warren Zevon.
“Queens Supreme” airs at 10 p.m. Friday on CBS.
