ABSTRACT
The American public acquired a basic legal culture from the many representations of criminal trials in fi ctions like Perry Mason. To a certain extent this is true of European television viewers as well. However considerable differences exist between the Roman law traditions and the Anglo-American system and this is particularly obvious in the criminal procedure causing a problem for many who fi nd themselves in criminal court in France, for example. In that country the trial is a confi rmation of the “truth” already established by the juge d’instruction, a sort of examining magistrate, before the trial even begins.1 In all the countries of the common law, the facts are tried directly in public and two theories of the case, of the “truth,” are presented by the parties to convince a jury. It is therefore easier to write a script based on the common-law model of the criminal trial with its method of searching for the truth, which carries more suspense than the other model. The interrogation of witnesses, conducted in turn by the defense and the prosecution and especially the possible recall of some witnesses creates a vivid dramatic tension, making a purely linear, and more tedious, reading of the facts impossible. In addition, confessions, which inevitably closed Perry Mason episodes, satisfi ed the television viewer, solving the mystery and consolidating his confi dence in the legal system, the story and the law thus fulfi lling their obligations. The revelations of the real offender saved the innocent and reestablished the proper order of things, the wrong was righted and the guilty, the real one, would pay.
