This struck me as odd. Check out the courtroom art of the Hans Reiser trial. It’s not “bad”, but isn’t it a bit cartoony?
For all the world it looks like that’s a picture of the bailiff farting.
It always seems to me that the courtroom art is very cartoonish. I always find it a bit disturbing when it is a violent crime that is being tried and the art looks like it came from a badly-drawn comic book. I do agree that the bailiff needs Bean-O.
The image of the Defense attorney … is it me, or does everyone in the background look like they just noticed that he has a giant rip in the seat of his pants and his polka-dotted bloomers are prominently on display? (The guy in the center appears to be giving this an undue amount of thought.)
I’ve drawn for a court case before. It’s hard, because there are certain people (jury members especially, but sometimes the witnesses or even the defendant) that you aren’t allowed to draw.
And a court case isn’t like Law and Order, where they only show the dramatic bits and it’s over in half an hour - you have to spend hours and hours listening to dull people talk about dull things while you’re scribbling away, so you tend to get a little creative with your artwork to keep your interest up.
The end result can be such things as highly detailed architectural reproductions of the courtroom’s elegant furnishings, or stylised representations of the activity of the courtroom to give a sense of character or drama.
Probably it’s not a good idea to do that, but it’s hard to resist, especially if your past art experience has been comic books or costume design or something.
I got a really good laugh from that. Man, that’s funny.
Why draw, though? Are people not allowed to take pictures?
It’s a courtroom sketch. It’s meant to be an attempt to substitute for a photo. So yes, you get the expressions and such. Mind, I wonder if this trial is so boring that the artist started doing a lot of details–tie patterns and such–as GuanoLad pointed out.
I will add that I sat on a coroner’s jury years ago for a high-profile coroner’s inquest. Apparently, jury members can be rendered for such things, and we all got a kick out of heading home at night and watching the TV news to see how we looked in that day’s sketches.
If I ever have a high-profile trial, I’m going to hire R. Crumb to do the courtroom sketches.
I believe that’s right. Must be a U.S. thing.
Yep. It’s a UK thing too - no cameras in the court so we tend to get interesting pastel sketches.
Anyone else remember many (20?) years back when SNL had a semi-regular news bit where they had variously comedic “courtroom art”? Stick figures, famous cartoon figures, etc. - all carefully designated “artist’s representation” or somesuch to make sure no one mistook them for photos.
I’ve seen plenty of courtroom art that conveyed more “feeling” with less content.
What’s in the defense attorney’s pockets?
Handses! Handses are in its pockets!
This is an actual photo of Reiser and his lawyer. In the courtroom drawings Reiser looks surprised all the time.
Interesting thing about this case, his wife’s body has not been found. She could be back in Russia for all they know. I really didn’t know you could go to trial for murder when there is no murder victim.
IANAL, but from what I understand you can go to trial with no body if there’s enough circumstantial evidence to argue with. It’s just a hell of a lot harder to prove murder if you don’t have a body or even know that the person is, in fact, dead, and not just pining for the fjords. (or Pravda)
Correct. Murder convictions no longer require bodies. Texas used to be the sole exception, but the legislature changed the law in 1993.
I know an artist that got kicked out of the courtroom for being too accurate in representing jurors in Palo Alto. The guy was a great cartoonist and watercolorist… too good, in fact. Apparently the lack of faces wasn’t enough for the media-hating judge.