Meet Judge Fleischer

Move over Judge Judy, Pirro, and Mathis (Et al.), a Texas-based judge, Judge Fleischer, streaming live from criminal court has stolen the reality court TV show.

“You are not to drive for any reason,” Judge Fleischer recently ordered a repeat offender with a nasty habit of driving on a suspended license. “I don’t care if Mother Teresa needs to go to church, you are not driving!”

It’s a go-to hypothetical, a performative slam-dunk for the waggishly-suited, facially-animated misdemeanor judge. At times the hypothetical passenger in that scenario is Jesus himself, but it’s usually (merely) Mother Teresa. At other times, the defendant faces a higher-stakes scenario of rescuing Mother Teresa from a fire. Still, in that case, no driving allowed. Judge’s order.

I spent 10-plus hours watching Judge Fleischer’s Court tv “show” live streaming from Harris County Criminal Court at Law #5. Why? Because I’m a demented masochist, and it’s not every day a misdemeanor judge handling volumes of riff-raff cases becomes Internet famous, his “petty” crime docket monitored by thousands of new media outlets, moment after moment clipped and repackaged across a dozen sensationalized law & order feeds on Youtube and Reels.

Now, I get it! Judge Fleischer is persistently and politely pissed-off to his own amusement. He really desires both order and competency. He wants control.

He’s pissed-off by bonded defendants who don’t appear in court, just as much as those who appear in court appearing poorly. He recently threatened to “spank” a first-time defendant for appearing in shorts and a hoodie and shrugging at the court.

He’s threatened to throw a tiny illegal immigrant shoplifting abuelita back-in-jail with a bond so high “her teeth will fall out.” In overcrowded county jail, where there is no dentist, that’s a thing that actually happens. That threat is real. Heavy.

So is this threat. Judge Fleischer warns each illegal immigrant before his court that if they do end-up back in jail, the government will likely deport him. It’s a diligent caution, and a reality, as President Trump returns to office with a massive mandate upon his shoulders.

However, before you get the idea that Fleischer is any prosecutor’s best friend, he’s not exactly thrilled with the work of law enforcement, either. He’s got a knack for sizing-up wrongful arrests and racial profiling cases really quick-like through pre-trial probable cause hearings. Happens a lot, in his court, as The Young Turks news channel took note.

To fully unpack the unprecedented nature of Judge Fleischer’s YouTube stardom, and what it means to be a popular judge of an entertainment-seeking people, viewers may need a crash course in the evolution of Court TV.

There was a time, in the blurry annals of reality television, decades before Survivor invented competitive glamping and The Bachelor glamorized marriage as a game show prize, when a humble court TV show featuring real litigants with real cases, broke real ground. That time was called 1981, and the show was The People’s Court. The court premiered in syndication, airing adjacent to The Price Is Right, opening with a hooky teaser pulling double-duty as a disclaimer: “What you are about to witness is real.”

How real was it? Always debatable, in showbiz.

The People’s Court cast its litigants from the small-claims dockets of Los Angeles’ Municipal Courts, paying real litigants to settle their disputes through a binding arbitration process. A folksy-tough WWII veteran named Joseph Wapner, armed with a legal-mind built by the University of Southern California, took that judgeship seriously. He took genuine interest in litigants from behind an all-powerful studio bench, dispensing legal insights to his litigants and the masses alike, in a way they could understand.

Judge Wapner played judge as much as he did teacher, on The People’s Court. With his calm and inquisitive demeanor, even non-prevailing parties (today, we call these “losers”) may feel pretty-ok about losing in small claims. Or, perhaps it was the show’s compensation fund covering awarded damages that soothed heretofore grudges? Either way, court-reporter Doug Llewelyn’s chummy post-case interviews with the litigants wrapped things pleasantly every time.

Take a stroll through memory lane and watch an episode or two. You’d be shocked to see that The People’s Court, in its first iteration under Wapner’s tutelage, wasn’t an adversarial show! It was an educational show about the civil and reasoned nature of adversarial litigation.

That all changed in 1993 when the canceled The People’s Court, not for any scandal, but for the good old-fashioned reason of flagging ratings for not being scandalous enough. To the best of my knowledge, Court TV became self-aware shortly thereafter in 1996 when Judge Judy Sheindlin filled Wapner’s shoes with a sassy and slap-happy show. She perfected the eye-roll, as far as I’m concerned, and it seemed she resented her litigants by default. The People loved it.

A pioneer in shame-porn, Judy was! That format ate its own tail over the next two decades, spawning a dozen abominable freak-shows modeled off Jerry Springer and Maury. Eventually, the only litigants on these shows were comics and trolls playing dumb bits amongst friends, paid actors, and the occasional naive litigant mistakenly expecting a real court.

After all, it’s a principle of science as much as it is an expectation in applied justice, that you cannot observe a thing without changing it. The camera and audience affect realness, and a court’s objectivity requires realness.

Some local Houston-area defense attorneys have claimed Fleischer plays to the camera, attempting to look tough for political reasons and to their clients’ dispositional detriments. Judge Fleischer argues he’s above-board and fair. “I don’t know if they think I’m making money on the side,” Fleischer has said. “Or, they think there’s something dubious happening.”

It  feels like something dubious has certainly happened with Fleischer’s court. He does play to the camera. He’ll look directly into it like a tell of uncertainty amidst desperation, breaking the fourth wall. That’s not necessarily bad, though.

What might be, is how he gets on a roll and slaps a defendant or two really trying and largely complying with difficult monitoring expectations amidst limited-to-no resources. Like a medical doctor who’s able to perform complex procedures, Fleischer has a terrible benchside manner with defendants of limited means.

In one case, the judge asked a defendant if he’s got a job. “I mow lawns with my uncle,” the defendant meekly replied.

“Get a real job,” the judge dismissively ordered. That’s an actual hackneyed line from some elitist playbook, delivered to a mostly-illiterate man who barely speaks English. Mowing lawns may be the job he’s going to get. What else is there, for him? The world needs lawn mowers.

I’ll bet what the judge meant, was a job that he could document. A job the judge could monitor and micromanage, for compliance with bond conditions. However, that requires literacy, and for many people that may be asking too much. Sometimes, you just get in a truck with your uncle and make $100 cash, and that’s the best you can do.

The first hour into watching Judge Fleischer’s show, you’ll enjoy his enthusiastic embrace for a return to law and order. You may cheer when Judge Fleischer enthusiastically declares “No more catch and release,” as he throws a defendant in jail for testing positive on drugs while on bond release. Ten hours later, you will be disillusioned and wondering how American society may ever recover from whatever miserable shape that it’s in! That’s the slog of the streaming show, Fleischer’s criminal court docket.

Hundreds of District, County and Municipal Courts across Texas broadcast criminal proceedings every day. It’s not unusual, in these post-pandemic days. The only unusual thing is that Judge Fleischer grew popular doing it exceptionally well. I want to presume Judge Fleischer knows more than his critics, only because he seems realer than they.