"Law and Popular Culture: Roy Cohn, Trump Witch-hunts, and the Hegemony of TV’s Perry Mason"

law and popular culture Roy con Trump witch hunts and the hegemony of TV's Perry Mason I am Michael M Epstein professor of law at Southwestern Law School in LA Angeles California I am thrilled to have been asked to contribute to the elus law reviews collection on Law and culture for this presentation I will slice off a narrow but tasty piece of the law and culture pie law and popular culture today I will talk about television's best known fictional lawyer Perry Mason so well known that many Americans including colleagues that entered law school with me have misunderstood him to be real I will also talk today about Roy con a notorious real life lawyer who weaponized American criminal justice first as a right-hand man to Red baiting senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s and then in the last years of his life as an adviser to Donald Trump Roy con and Perry Mason represent two Extremes in the American view of its Criminal Justice System Perry Mason's popularity I would argue was in response to Roy con's abuse of the rule of law during the anti-communist witch hunts of the McCarthy era Roy con was an early advocate of the politics of Destruction he saw the rule of law as transactional and state power as subservient to his own power while for most Americans the fictional 1950s era Perry Mason embodies all that is good in the law the reality of what he represents is more complex Perry Mason and Roy con are two sides of the same coin indeed I would argue that Perry Mason became a cultural icon precisely because of the notoriety of Roy con's collaboration with Senator Joe McCarthy in reaching this conclusion I use cultural studies analyses like structuralism and social-based cultural Theory the type of scholarship trailblazed by figures such as Claude Levy Strauss and Antonio grami Stuart Hall and others I won't Wade too deep into the incandescent Waters of cultural studies methodology here other than to say that representations in popular culture are more than they seem and they warrant serious study I would posit that when it comes to iconic representations in popular culture there can be multi veent meanings that can be described as both dominant and oppositional to the sociopolitical Zeitgeist of an era for Perry Mason the dominant reading is one in which he is a champion for social justice from September 1957 to September 1966 Perry Mason a courtroom drama based on characters created by lawyer novelist Earl Stanley Gardner aired in Prime Time on the CBS television network even today the Perry Mason character portrayed by Raymond Burr is widely regarded as the epitome of the great lawyer Statesman week after week on television the widely respected Mason would defend homicide cases with a Steely calm in accordance with a narrative formula that did not vary after deciding to represent an accused murderer whom he believes is innocent Mason would search for evidence exonerating his client and investigate friendly and hostile Witnesses then in a dramatic flourish that usually occurred in court he would confront the real killer and elicit a confession thereby by solving the crime to everyone's satisfaction invariably Perry Mason would function more as a detective and therapist than as a practitioner of law spending the bulk of his time uncovering Clues to a perplexing mystery and reassuring his client and viewers that Justice shall not wrongfully punish the innocent it is in these dual roles as sleuth and therapist that Perry Mason functions as a mediator for the cultural conflict inherent to the administration of justice at the same time however one can ascribe an oppositional reading to Perry Mason he is a populist who Champions the innocent against a state that has wrongfully accused the defendant in every episode Perry Mason exposes intransigence and incompetence by prosecutors that subtly suggest an abuse of their power it is not a coincidence that Mason's main prosecutorial foil is named Hamilton Burger Perry Mason quite figuratively makes minc meat out of ham Burger in every court appearance Perry Mason takes the law into his own hands he alone can fix the criminal justice system that has failed his innocent client and he does this each week by avoiding the rule of law entirely his cases are always salv by facts that elicit a truthful confession in court from a guilty party in what is widely referred to as the Perry Mason moment there is no weighing of the evidence no controversy no debate the judge and even the hapless prosecutor are always willing to accept Perry Mason's Justice in Perry Mason's World there is not even legal process Mason disturbs crime scenes collects evidence and shortcuts trial procedures as if he is police prosecutor and judge he is essentially the power of the state packaged into one man a defense lawyer who does the work of the state's professionals it is perhaps a nod to Mason's populism that he typically defends his clients in a preliminary hearing not at a trial obviating the need for a jury no one gets to second guess Perry Mason like Perry Mason the very real Roy con was also a populist who critiqued the power of the state to exact Justice con did this by flouting the rules of Law and Court procedure he did this through attacks on prosecutors and judges and by smearing the criminal justice process as witch hunts essentially castigating the state for the same abuses of power he facilitated as McCarthy's legal enabler as a defense lawyer and legal advisor he attempted to defang the power of the state casting people rightly accused of crimes as a grieved victims of inappropriate agenda-driven misconduct by state officials while Mason derailed the wheels of Justice he did not try to destroy the vehicle through his diligent detective work Mason essentially supplanted the rule of law with the rule of fact leading to an unimpeachable resolution that Americans scarred by McCarthy's witch hunts would have found comforting con also argued for the Primacy of facts but his facts were essentially assertions that he or his clients fabricated he would eventually be disbarred for professional misconduct today he is largely remembered as a venal hypocrite in popular culture perhaps most notably in Tony kushner's 1980s era Play Angels in America with the ascent of Donald Trump to political power representations of Roy con have taken on new resonance in popular culture as I record this Trump has just been convicted on 34 felony counts in a New York state trial court from the time he was indicted through the trial and even after conviction Trump has repeatedly drawn from the Roy cone Playbook of personal smear and political grievance he has attacked the state prosecutor as a racist Pawn controlled by George Soros described the Colombia born judge as corrupt and biased and branded the entire prosecution as a disgrace and a Witch Hunt Orest ated by his political opponents his is a grievance fueled strategy that he turns to any time he is accused of wrongdoing he used it against the government lawyers investigating allegations of collu with Russia the lawyers judges and plaintiffs who successfully sued him for sexual abuse defamation and civil fraud and the criminal prosecutors currently pursuing two federal law cases and a Georgia state law case that have been mired in delay and just like Roy con Donald Trump makes up facts to Proclaim himself as a victim the difference is that in an era dominated by social media Bubbles and disinformation Trump's lies are often accepted uncritically by his his supporters since he is not a lawyer he can lie with impunity there is no disbarment for him what he won't do is testify under oath in any of these trials that would put him in legal Peril what he prefers to do instead is hire lawyers to make these attacks on his behalf that's the role Roy con played in Trump's life decades ago more recently that same role brought disgrace and soon it may bring dispart to former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani who acted as Trump's personal attorney by trafficking in what his AIDS have called alternative facts Trump is trying to tap into the unimpeachable fact-based justice that popularized Perry Mason the problem however is that in the real world most lawyers will not risk their careers to repeat Trump's lies as they carry out their professional duties that has led Trump to publicly complain about his lawyers in a moment of candid introspection he famously revealed what he expects of his lawyer where's my Roy con he griped he might have just as easily said Where's My Perry Mason ultimately it comes down to whether one accepts Trump's fabricated assertions of fact as truth most do not but many in America do Perry Mason is a historic figure because viewers accept his ings a fact as Truth for those who believe Trump's assertions Trump needs a Perry Mason more than a Roy conen but either way it's about the Primacy of the rule of fact over the rule of law as we move to the 2024 US presidential election let us hope the rule of law ultimately prevails thank you