Cross Courts

By James Poniewozik

The formula is a hit for Law & Order: rip a legal case from the headlines and make it into drama. Now two reality series, NBC's Crime & Punishment and ABC's State V., are cutting out the middleman and giving us the headlines straight from the courtroom.

Crime (Sundays, 10 p.m. E.T.), from L&O producer Dick Wolf, borrows not just L&O's cha-chung! sound between scenes but also its pro-prosecution bent. Made in cooperation with San Diego prosecutors, it finds raw drama in cases of murder and child molestation; after one verdict, a courtroom melee breaks out. As reality TV, it's riveting, addictive and well told. As a civics lesson, it's manipulative and tendentious. We have access only to the D.A.s, so the presumption of innocence, unpopular with crime-show viewers anyway, gets 86ed, and every emotional cue prods us to root for "guilty"--even the show's title. You don't get ratings making Accusation & Verdict.

State V. sets up its cameras in the opposite camp, with Arizona defense lawyers, but it also gives airtime to prosecutors and, most important, jurors. It's a bit stiffer than Crime, with conventional news narration by Cynthia McFadden, but it's as interesting and better balanced. And it will almost certainly do worse in the ratings. Why? It's on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. E.T.--opposite Law & Order. And Americans will take a fictional prosecution, even in reruns, over a real defense any day. --By James Poniewozik