Unsung Heroes of the Court

a third of your faces. That's right. You can get tickets at s F sketch Fest dot com and again Friday, January one, thirty pm Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, California. We will see you there. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w Chuck, Bryan and Jerry's over there, and this is stuff you should know. Let's get to it, friends. Yeah, that's right.

But hey, we have a bit of an announcement that I'm excited about me too. We have added a new writer to the stable. Uh Olivia Greshawn and this is Libya's first effort and how we're doing it, you know, because we've we've never really on boarded people because uh David Edward colleagues of ours from the Housetuff worksdays. So we thought, maybe, you know, we'd give someone an article, not I mean sort of as a tryout, but just to make sure that it was a good fit. And

Olivia killed it right out of the block. And she's super talented as a writer and obviously very smart and great at research, and like I know, both speaking for both of us, we're just very excited to have Livia on board. And uh yeah, so thanks Olivia, and welcome to the to the family. Welcome aboard, Olivia. If you went to high school with Livia, now would be a good time to email her and say, hey, I didn't know you were writing for stuff you should know. She'd

be like, oh that yeah. But this is a kind of fun one I think as a first assignment to for her because it's a little different, and that it wasn't just one um one really deep dive on one single thing. What she's gonna bomb that when we give her that next one, but this is actually three things in one. I had the idea of court stenography. But then I was like, you know what, maybe, uh, that's

not quite enough. But I didn't want to do it as a shorty, so I thought, let's just expand it and talk about bailiff's uh court stenography and court sketch artists, the triumvirate. Yeah, what we're calling the unsung heroes of the courtroom because they're there. Uh, but you know, you're not really ideally if they're doing their job right and they're not a celebrity bailiff, you're not even gonna know they're there. Yeah, that's pretty much true. They're kind of

meant to kind of blend into the background. Is the judge who wants all the attention usually sometimes the lawyers, Okay, bailiffs sometimes the lawyers, please, um, even the bailiff that's super busy doing things. They're they're not showboating, you know what I'm saying. No, they're not like twirling their gun or anything or being like hurry up, this is boring. That would be bad. But bailiffs are the least exciting though, so I think we should start with them. Okay, so bailiff's,

it turns out, um find their heritage. It goes back many many centuries actually, and they apparently originally started out in the UK as kind of legal overseers of a manor house for a feudal lord. Basically, yeah, kind of property managers. They could collect rent today, would sometimes do some accounting, they could collect fines. I think a little later on is when they were brought into the court system, but it was still sort of doing like sheriffy things, right.

So that I saw, Chuck was the bailey in ants where they were much more um involved in courts and they actually have more power. They were more of a government official than just like somebody who served a feudal lord. Okay, And that's where this it's it's weird. It's almost like between medieval England and medieval France, between these two interpretations of what a bailiff was, it got all mixed together, shaken up, some stuff fell off and some stuff stick around.

And then you said, okay, now we have the bailiff as we understand it today, right, which is you know, kind of what we're gonna concentrate on is the the good old fashioned American bailiff sitting in the quarter eat eating apple pie and ready to jump in there and crack someone's skull open, or hand the judge a key piece of evidence or arrest somebody. Yeah, because a bailiff today is as far as people in America and if you're in the UK, you're like, oh, I know the

bailiff is. It's somebody who, uh there's a water bailiff for there's an eviction bailiff who deals with travelers who won't leave. Um, that's not really our understanding of bailiff in the United States. In the United States, we think of them almost exclusively as an officer of the court, who is, in most people's opinion, the the security for the court. Like they were a gun, they were a badge. They're very frequently like a sheriff's deputy or a federal

marshal or something like that. But apparently there's way more to their job than just that I had no idea about. Like I really thought they were just there just stand up and look menacing that was their their purpose. Uh. Yeah, there's about eighteen thousand and change in the United States. Interestingly, it's not a it's not an official title. Um, it's just sort of, as Olivia says, like a colloquial term for someone who does this job. Um, but you don't

get titled bailiff. They just they just call you bailiff. Like you can be a a part time bailiff in a small town but also be a marshal or a sheriff's deputy as your main job. Yeah, I think even in in um in big cities that can be the case as well. But um, but yeah, I think you're you're you're You're definitely in a smaller area, more rural area where there's say, less court activity, they're gonna be like, this is not big enough of a job for you. You need to do more. You need to pull your

weight more than this. That's right, So go back to be a veterinary assistant, all right, deliver the paper, Yeah, do a little bailiffing, and don't forge the mayor's That's right. So some of the other jobs that a bailiff has that I wasn't aware of. You said something about them handling evidence. If you are dealing with evidence in the court, you do not just hand it to the judge. You hand it to the bailiff, and the bailiff hands it to the judge. That was a big one. I didn't realize, Yeah,

you present the murder weapon and you run it. The judge with it, right, and then bailiff says, go ahead, yeah exactly. Another one that I did know but didn't realize I knew is that the bailiff is usually the person who swears in a witness, making them swear an oath on the Bible or the Constitution or something like that, depending on whether you're in a red state or a blue state, you know what I mean. Yeah, they're gonna usher the jury in and out. They're gonna usher the

prisoners in and out. Uh. You know, a lot of times with these big trials, they'll have you know, a few bailiffs working the room. Uh. They tell people to not smoke, They tell people, they screen people when they come into the courtroom. They have to you know, you can't yell out loud. You can't do that, not in

this court. Like the judge is gonna admonish them. But then the judge is gonna look over at the bailiff, and the bailiff is gonna say, I know what that look means, right, Yeah, And I was gonna say good. Bailiff doesn't even need to wag their finger, like the kemb motumbo. They can just shoot a look and you know exactly what you're not supposed to be doing anymore.

So Olivia did some research on on a website that kind of broke down the you know, like what makes for a good bailiff if you're looking to do this as a job, And they classified it as highly social with constant contact with others, including unpleasant and angry people and physically aggressive people. So you're not just the muscle, but you're definitely the muscle exactly. Um, which means you're also providing security to not just to the courtroom, but

for like functions of the court. So like, if the jury is sequestered, your job as bailiff is to be one of the people guarding them. You're also kind of in charge of guarding the jury against themselves, so like if the jury is not supposed to be discussing the case or at some point, you're supposed to be there making sure that they don't discuss the case. Yeah that look, um, you're just basically making sure everybody's following the rules as

much as possible. That's right, And I thought this is pretty interesting, kind of going back to the feudal lord time bailiff still in the United States can be responsible for evicting people, not just in England. I saw that was Michigan, in Ohio and I think Washington State all use bailiffs still, whereas other places use sheriff's deputies. But then confusingly, in some places of bailiff is a sheriff's deputy. What do you paid for doing this? Grand? Easy? Not

quite h it depends state governments pay much more. There's a median of almost sixty nine grand a year, which is not bad if you're on a local level, maybe forty two grand for being a bailiff. What I didn't understand, and I didn't get a chance to look up, is if that's on top of your salary as a marshal or a a sheriff's deputy or something like that. Uh, it wouldn't surprise me if you part time to bailiff. If it might be more of an hourly thing. But

I don't know. I'm just guessing there, um but not. You know, it's not bad scratch for a high school graduate or to get your g e d. That's a you know, it's a very good living. Uh. You can have a degree in criminal Justice. I saw where and we'll talk about celebrity bailiffs here in a second. But Judge Judy's bailiff Petrie. Is it Petrie Hawkins Bird or Petrie I have never watched the second of Judge Judy Points of Pride in my life, so I don't know, but I'm going with Hawkins Bird. He had a he

had AH, he has a criminal justice degree, so he's legit, right. Um, So well, I mean, let's talk about celebrity bailiff's because there's basically two that come to mind, and one of them is Petrio Petrie Hawkins Bird, who was Judge Judy's bailiff for twenty five seasons of Judge Judy. And I read a like a really sad little article. So apparently Judge Judy um ran her course on CBS, got canceled and said I'm going over to I m B TV where I am dB TV, which I didn't know was

the thing. No, I don't think anybody did. So everybody's like a good, good move, Judge Judy. But she didn't ask her bailiff of twenty five years to come to her show and apparently didn't talk about it at all. And she had announced that she was doing this show before the end of her twenty fifth season, so they filmed the entire twenty fifth season together, and she just never mentioned it that she was starting this other show and he wasn't invited. So, um, his feelings were definitely hurt.

And I think he was a little bewildered and sad, and I think felt a little betrayed by that. Yeah. I saw that too. I saw that the reason she gave was that they can't afford your salary. And he said, well, no one even talked to me about it. I probably would have taken less, but it wasn't offered. Uh. And he also said that in twenty five years, she never like invited me to one celebrity shin dig or one like social lunch. Right. Yeah, but he said, but I wish her well, and you know, he didn't want to

drag her through the money. You know, he was a class that He basically was just saying, like we were professional colleagues, we weren't friends, and she was just like, I'm I'm just moving on with a new cast, and it is what it is. Like I said, I never watched it. What I did watch a lot as a ten to twelve year old was the People's Court. Yeah.

I don't know why I love that show as it was on right after school and I watched me a lot of Judge Wapner and a lot of Rusty Barrell is bailiff and Rusty Barrell has the first celebrity bailiff and by far the most prolific celebrity bailiff of all time. He actually was a real bailiff in court for Los Angeles County. So was a bird. Oh yeah, Bert, Yes, you're right, you're right. He was from Manhattan. That's how he knew judge duty was. They worked in an actual

court together before she had a TV show. Um Rusty Barrell worked in in l A County courts. He actually guarded the courtroom during the Manson trial. He was legit um but he became the celebrity bailiff on divorce Court first from nineteen fifty seven and nineteen sixty nine. And it just so happened that he worked with um Uh, a lawyer by the last name of Wapner during that time on that show, and that lawyer Wapner would go on to have a son named Judge Joseph A. Wapner

who would become the People's Court judge. Right, that's right. Uh. And they worked together on People's Court and then uh judge Wattner's Animal Court. And he said, most prolific. I was doing the math real quick because Bird was in there twenty five years, but it looks like twenty six years for Rusty. Oh wow, it was twelve on divorce Court, twelve on People's Court. And the boy that Animal Court that pushed him over the edge was that the shark that got jump. I don't know. I mean it was

two years. I bet it wasn't very good, but they count as two more years, so one more year than Bird. Uh. And apparently Wattner at one point an interview said when they were originally doing the People's Court casting that the executive producer said that he wanted to sexy, give me a sexy girl as the bailiff, but Wattner was like, no, let's let's use this real bailiff my dad worked with. And he did, and the rest is history. Should we take a break, we should. We're gonna take a break, everybody,

and not keep you in suspense. We're gonna come back and talk about court reporters. Alright, Chuck, So core reporters are um, you said that bailiffs were the least interesting, So core reporters are the most interesting to you. I think court reporters and sketch artists are definitely interesting to me. But boy, I love this court reporting section. I thought it was super interesting. Uh, the machinery and the history, and that this the fact that they are play a

real civic duty, uh in recording history. And that's one of the first points Olivia makes is in uh Neo Babylonian Mesopotamia, they kept legal records on clay tablets, and these weren't just like, uh so we'll know what happened in this court case. It was, but it was recording history, like it was recording precedent and all that stuff was

really important from the beginning. Yeah, for for the Mesopotamians, the Babylonians, they weren't saying, like, we gotta preserve this this amazing verdict about this land dispute for posterity, Like this was how like on this clay tablet was how somebody could prove that no, my family owns this land. It was decided back in five b c UM and my family owns this land. Look at the cunea formed tablet um, we get a hand truck and I'll be

right back right exactly. But the the it just turned out that that they kept such meticulous records and they survived, and we figured out how to read Kennea formed that um. That that we learned a lot about the Babylonians and how they dealt with law and agricult sure um and land disputes and traditions and customs and all that thanks to writing that down through legal documents. And we actually understand a lot about a lot of things based on

court documents. Like do you remember when we were talking about the Salem witch trials in that episode and we were saying, like, we we understand it very much because it was extensively documented, but it was documented through court cases, and there's just certain ways that you preserve facts and information when you're documenting it through a court record, that's just not the same. It doesn't give you the full picture, um compared to you know, rounding out with journals and

diaries and stuff like that. But it's still way way better than nothing. But what struck me is weird, Chuck, is that the idea of recording stuff like that, which seems like, of course you're going to do that. It got lost for a while. Yeah. Here in the United States during the colonial period, they were like you mentioned diaries and stuff. That's kind of what they relied on was, you know, whenever a lawyer or a judge might happen to keep personal notebooks about stuff, they would use that.

But they didn't officially decree like, this is something we need to do. I think it was the early eighteen hundreds that they said, no, this is a problem when we can't just rely on whoever happens to want to take notes and save them. Uh, judges, you need to start writing your verdicts down on paper at least and not just say them out loud. And the judges are like, uh, Probably because judges didn't really feel like doing that is gave rise to actual court reporting. Yeah, think about this, chuck.

You know how like emphatic like older men are when they're just they just know they're right. Like, think about the cluster that would arise when some judge just knew

he remembered a verdict correctly and those totally wrong. Like that was the state of the early American court system before they finally said, like the beginning of the nineteenth century, when they finally said, no, we we need to write this down, like if you put yourself in that situation, I can't imagine how many terrible outcomes there were from that.

Oh yeah, I think it was an eighteen o four one, Massachusetts finally enacted a law that said the governor has the authority to appoint someone quote learned in the law to obtain true and authentic reports of the of the decisions. In eighteen seventeen was when Congress finally passed a law saying the Supreme Court at the very least has to have an official court reporter. Said yeah, yeah, Supreme Court, you get on that too. It's something I didn't realize.

I thought it was pretty interesting, is that, Um, before that people did document court reports, is particularly of the Supreme Court, but they were just like freelance mos who showed up and sat there and documented it themselves to turn around and sell to whoever wanted that that kind of information. So it was like, um, it was it was willy nilly, I think is the term for that.

And you might ask who would want to buy that? Uh, you know, law schools, attorneys, bobbies, right, constant bailiffs, bailiff's Bailey's So finally, finally, at the end of the nineteenth century, everybody's like, all right, we're on board with this idea about actually recording the decisions of the court. And let's go a little further. Let's let's record every single minute detail, down to gestures, down to somebody sitting quietly when asked

a question. And um, that's where court reporting was actually born, was in the end of the nineteenth century. Yeah, when the National Shorthand Reporters Association was formed. And I think this is one of the reasons that spoke to me a little bit because I took a course in high school called speed writing. Oh well, there we go, speedwriting, type, typing, and um, I can't remember the third thing. It's one of those classes that that you know that you spent

time doing three different things. Oh a checkbook that was in there. I don't that was that class anyway. Speed writing was, um no, but I did take kommack. Um I wasn't. It wasn't official shorthand as we're about to talk about. It was. It was a kind of shorthand though, um and the funniest thing I remember from that class. I don't know. I don't think I should say her name is my old friend. She would probably think it's funny,

it wouldn't care, but I won't say her name. But she sat next to me in class, and we used always cut up and she did not learn UM. She learned the shorthand, but not such that she could take the test, which was basically a teacher would just dictate things. You would write it in shorthand and then transcribe it back in long form UM. But she was really really fast at writing, so she would write it all in regular longhand and then take the time to transcribe it

to shorthand and then turn them in reverse order. And now you got busted though, And that was technically cheating UM. And always felt bad for my unnamed friend. Was really fast, didn't account for something. Yeah, I mean it was she should have gotten an A for effort at least. But yeah, if she went back and transcribed it using a book, that's that's cheating chuck a book. Oh well, then yes she should have gotten an A. She just needed more time.

It's like if you were in a German class and you had to just write down in English what they were saying in German, writing the German first and then taking your time to transcribe it. Yah know, I got what you're saying for sure, And I dispute the teacher having a book involved. But shorthand is fascinating to me. And as a very long history going back to Cicero's enslaved servant, Marcus Julius Tiro in six b c E developed a Latin shorthand became known as tyroni in notes,

and these were symbols. They were like four thousand symbols, and they you know, it was basically the earliest version of shorthand. Yeah, and apparently medieval monks got ahold of it and turned it into thirteen thousand symbols. Of course they did so, um, yeah, because they had a lot of time on their hand time. Um. And there's like a real value in developing shorthand. So there was all sorts of shorthand systems that were developed over the time.

But as far as court reporting goes, it wasn't until a guy named John Robert Greg got into the mix in the late nineteenth century, UM, and he developed a Greg method of shorthand writing that was so useful and so popular he actually opened schools around the country. I saw him described as a tycoon where basically, if you were a secretary, if you were involved in anything that that that involved transcribing or taking dictation or any job like that, you basically could not get the job until

you had a GREG certificate. And so you had to go pay to take those classes and be trained like it was just the way it was. And then along came Miles Bartholome You, who basically ruined everything for John Robert Creig and his heirs. No, not so you would think the court reporter Miles barthol of You, by inventing the first stenotype machine, would have made uh speedwriting in shorthand go the way of the Dodo, But that did

not happen. Uh. And Livia points out very stuteley that today there are still some court reporters who do pen and paper shorthand and ostensibly because as as we'll see, it's really hard to learn how to master that machine. And if you're really good at shorthand, and you can write two hundred words a minute using shorthand, then just have plenty of pins and paper and go at. Yeah, if you can write two hundred words a minute, you're

probably generally keeping up. But from the the stenography machines or the steno um is what they're called machine shorthand like you can, if you know what you're doing, you can do three d words a minute. And that's when you're doing like some high quality court reporting work. Yeah. I get a feeling that the pen and paper might be some of these small town courts that you know what I mean. Yeah, they they're bailiff is doing all sorts of other jobs. Their core reporter just has pen

and paper. That's a giant mess basically in these small I mean, but it makes sense, you know. Uh. And before we move onto the stinto we do need to shout out the that weird, uh gas mask looking thing that you see sometimes the stino mass and that's the thing that you speak into but they can't hear you speaking, and it records, you know, it records you saying the real words. Yeah. I think my issue with that is not even the shape or the look of the mask.

It's the color of the material they use. It's always this weird clinical medical tan color. It's like have you heard of yellow or blue. This is a job that I thought when might be fun as a retirement job for me. Yeah. Uh, but I would not be able to do it without my own commentary, So it would just be a little very low voice like and and you know this attorney objects, Oh god, this guy again. He thinks he's all that. Yeah, I don't think we can. I don't think you can do that. I think you

just need to say what people are saying. Well, that's a talent in and of itself. It depends. So I was looking into those Steno masks and I was like, so how does this work? So you're actually when you're wearing that mask, it's part part muffler, part silence or like the people around you can't hear you. That's why that mask is so big. But all you're doing is restating what the people are You're you're doing vocal commentary on what's going on. Okay, that makes sense. But then

you're like, well wait a minute, are there like transcriptions? Yes, that means that you have to go back listen to what you recorded, type it up as you're listening, and turn it into a clean transcript. So you're basically doubling the work with the Steno steno mask. Oh, I thought it had. I thought it was a machine that just did it for you. Now it does. But when Force Wells invented that thing in World War Two, it did not have that machine. So it was a really clugey

process that took a lot of time. But the reason they did it is because it was so highly accurate and it could produce so many like comments and details and observations that you might just miss that if you were typing or writing shorthand right. So it was a lot of effort, but it seemed to be worth the effort. Uh. Livia found a court reporter from Cleveland named Todd L. Peterson who wrote some stuff. I think his name, sorry,

it's person. Oh do say Peterson? This person with two s s. Yeah, But he said basically, you know, if you're just talking about a regular person, they speaking about a hundred and eighty words a minute. But then you have multiple people speaking, you have people talking over each other, people interrupting each other. Uh, it can get up to three hundred actual words a minute. And if you're one

of the best typist around, you max out. You know, in the in the low one hundreds basically, and uh, you also have to say who was speaking to the name of the person you're in there for, you know, eight to ten hours at a time, and it's a brutal job. This machine is, uh, it's a crazy piece of machinery because it doesn't it's not like a little tiny typewriter. It is twenty two blank keys and a

blank number bar and you are playing it like a piano. Basically, you're not saying, you're not spelling out words one letter at a time. You're doing it all at the same time. And it's it's it's just a miracle how anyone ever learns how to use this thing. Yeah that that um, that hundred and ten word a minute typist is using a quarty keyboard like you and I use on our computers. And apparently, um, because the rate of speech is a

hundred and eighty words per minute. That means that if you're typing on a normal keyboard, you start to fall by mind at the first after the first ten seconds, and you just get further and further behind. Right with the machine you're talking about, the stenography machine with just

twenty two keys in that blank number bar. The way that set up is you've got the beginning consonant sounds that are being worked on the left hand the left side, on your right hand, on the right side are the ending consonant sounds, and in the middle are the syllables or the vault the vowels that um that you use your thumb to type, that go in the middle of

the words. So that means, because of the placement of the keys, you can press all these these keys at once and compose a word all at once, rather than one letter at a time. No matter how fast you're typing on a quarty keyboard, you're still ultimately typing one letter at a time. With a stenography machine, you're typing

an entire word all at once. Basically, yes. And that's why in a courtroom they can ask for the stenographer to read back, the court reporter to read back something that's just been said, which has been used in countless TV comedies and movie comedies throughout history. It's always a great gag when something dumb happens in court and the court reporter, in the very monotone reads back what has

just happened, like airplane airplane two. I can't remember what the joke was but I know there was one in that. I'm sure they did. That's a trope. It's been in a million movies. It's one of the great jokes. So one of the things that they've done is said, they said, Okay, the stenography machine is amazing, and the people who who use these things and can type three hundred plus words a minute are are magical human beings there. But um, we not have technology that can make these things even

more outstanding, and that is that while you're typing. Uh. And apparently, by the way, people who are typing who are masters of a stenography machine, um, they can they type with like accuracy at three hundred words a minute. So it's just fantastic. So they have these things plugged in now to a computer that's basically adding time stamps, um, putting the person's name after like next to who's speaking at any given point, um, And then they take that

and transfer it. They send it out to a real time live feed to like the judges computer, the lawyer's computers, um, so that everybody who needs one in the courtroom sees the transcript as it's happening, basically almost entirely in real time. Pretty cool. It is pretty cool. And then the one last technology I saw a chuck is that, um, they have a speech to text now, so that now, finally those stunno masks are actually a valuable tool, and I

believe they're starting to come back. Those on your phone, Yeah basically, but you just need a muffler silencer mask to attach to your phone and you'd be you'd be right there for a court reporter. Yeah, that those are remarkably accurate on the phone. I found. Yeah, it's pretty pretty interesting. But there are some things where they kind of lack, um, like if you are if you weren't

using just the court reports. Some apparently some courts have said let's just set up some microphones in the court and have an AI transcribe this and and just not you know, take the court reporter out of the whole thing in the stentle mask. Get rid of that ugly stentle mask. And they found that the AI can't do things like understand accents, um, especially if it's a thick accent when people talk over each other. It just throws

its hands up. Um. If if you want, if you ask an AI to to read it back, that can be a problem, or the AI can't ask you to repeat yourself. That's another one too. So if you are a court reporter, you're getting me making should be three thousand dollars a year. Should be asked me to learn that machine because it takes uh, it's this, you know. I guess it depends on how fast of a learning you are. But Mr person says six months to learn those key strokes and a a couple of years to

really get good at it. That's that's a lot of time put in. UM. I think the median pay is about sixty one grand as of May. You can also get a little side hustle going doing uh depots maybe, although I think most of those are usually video recorded because my friend does that for a living. Um, but sixty one grand should be more. That's all I'm saying. I'll bet they do both. I'll bet the video record them.

But I'm sure they have transcripts. Is because it's so much easier to scan a transcript definement you're looking for almost to his or just video. There's no court reporter on there. That's interesting. It probably depends on the again, the size of the case and the how much money you can throw at it, because it costs dough. Yeah, I can imagine. Uh, there was one person we should mention that. I kind of feel bad. But there's one

part of this I did find funny. There was New York State Supreme Court Court reporter, let's say this, we don't even aim him, who had a drinking problem and it screwed up pretty big at a few trials. And it's not funny because he had a drinking problem. The only funny part is I can imagine them reading the transcript backed at some point when he just repeatedly typed I hate my job. I hate my job, over and

over and over. Yeah. And apparently like he did this on some really important um trials and like he just didn't take notes for a couple of days and some of them and so now some guilty verdicts have been up for grabs, and they had chuck. They had reconstruction hearings where the judge brought the lawyers and the defendants at everybody back in and said, Okay, who remembers what about this? Because we're missing some really important parts of the record and we need to try to recreate it. Wow.

And the thing that stuck me to was in this in a New York Post article on it. They interviewed his ex wife and she said it was that job that caused him to start drinking the first place. And I'm like, amen, because I gotta tell you, I can't think of too many more stressful jobs that don't involve an actual human life in your hands, like say like

a heart surgeon or something than a court reporter. You think, yeah, man, the pressure to get everything right, not miss anything, not fall behind, and stay like that for eight hours at a stretch, you know, every day that you're working that that sounds like a very high pressure job. I don't know.

I think from that thing that that account you sent of what they it was another insider account was it seemed a little more zen to me than that because what they he talked about was hearing but not listening. So you kind of have to go into this fugue state almost where you're hearing words but you're not listening, as if you're in a conversation with someone, because then you're investing even if you're not trying to, you're probably investing emotionally, and that'll get you out of your rhythm.

You just have to you just to hear and let the words flow through your fingers. Yeah, yeah, pretty interesting, I think. Yeah, it is, like it is any thing, but it takes a certain kind of person for sure. Yeah, and I'm sure, I'm sure not all of them can do it, but yeah, that would probably be the ideal way to do it, for sure. All Right, let's take our last break, and we're gonna come back and talk

about those scrappy little sketch artists right after this. Alright, Uh, sketch artists are maybe the most unsung because there aren't many of them. Um. I was starting to think about court sketch artists, and you don't have them for every trial. It's not like a bailiff or a stenographer. You only get a sketch artist in there when it's something the media is interested in. And there's only so many of

those trials. There's only so many big cities where those trials might be taking place, So there aren't that many court sketch artists anymore that are working. No, And yeah, the sketches that are produced, they're not ordered by the court, they're not part of the court record. They exist to two for the media to have some sort of visual information to accompany reports of like court cases, which makes sense, but I never really thought about that before. Yeah, and

that's it. And it started because there weren't cameras. Uh. In eighteen fifty nine, it was John Brown's trial in Virginia and there was a national magazine that sent illustrators to cover this, and that was kind of where the

whole thing started. When cameras did come around, they put him in the courtroom and the trial of the century, the first trial of the century, uh, the Limberg baby kidnapping with Bruno Holtman was chaos with those huge cameras and flashbulbs and court reporter and photographers just like apparently climbing on tables to get good shots. It was just it was a zoo in there. So he said he couldn't even get a fair trial because of these camera people.

And even though that argument didn't work, Uh, the A b A said, you know what, no more cameras in the courtrooms. Um. Generally this is the American Bar Association, so they don't they can't lay down the law. But usually, I mean some are televised and sometimes there's cameras. I know, we'll watch the O J trial, but most times you're gonna see a sketch come out on the five o'clock news. Yeah, I mean because the A B. A said there shouldn't be cameras in the courtroom a lot of states and

the federal government said, yeah, you're you're absolutely right. And so that actually was one of those rare instances where like the predecessor came back in style. And yeah, I guess in the sixties, TV news was not a huge thing until the civil rights era. Um, until the assassination

of JFK and the ensuing assassination of Jack Ruby. Um, like the sixties is kind of supercharged the reason for there to be TV news, and um, the people who are doing the news needed, like if they couldn't get cameras in the courtroom, they still needed some visual and so that gave like a real boost to two courtroom sketch artists as well. Yeah, I think the Jack Ruby trial is a man named Howard Brody very famously sketched that one, and he went on to do RFK and

mlk's assassinations. Then there was a man named Bill Roebols who has done some pretty famous ones. I like his stuff. He did the Manson trial, and if you look at those sketches online. He kind of has a Ralph Steadman quality to him. Oh yeah, yeah, it's it's pretty cool stuff. The is that the guy who did the Manson leaping at the judge? Yes, yeah, so, um so yeah. So they're like, I think there are courtroom sketch artists that have kind of made names for themselves, especially among the media.

But what they will do is sit there and and you know, draw, um the scenes in the court. Believe it or not, that's what these sketch artists are doing all day. They sit around and draw. But then but it's it's harder than it sounds because very frequently there are um, there's not a lot of visual action going on in like the courtroom. It's very it's not rare necessarily, but it's not happening every moment. So they can't count on Charles Manson to always be jumping over a table exactly.

So the court the court sketch artist has to basically have a real eye for nuance and facial expression and and to figure out how to capture visually a subtle exchange that can maybe change the momentum of a court case or something like that, and then present it. Then they have to do it in a way that looks good, and they have to do it quickly, and then when

they're done, they have to run out. Well, up until probably the last few decades, they had to run outside and the TV news crewise would film the um the sketches that they made for that day for the evening news. Yeah, and you know, they don't have a special chair like the stenographer does, or a special place to stand. I mean, I think in some courts they accommodate them as best

they can. I think there was this one article for Mental Floss where one of the court reporters, Vicky ellen Behringer, said that, uh, they would give her a place to sit sometimes in the jury box if there was room. But sometimes you're just out there with everyone else and you're you know, you might have somebody with a big giant head in front of you. You gotta you gotta really work on the fly, and like you said, work fast. I mentioned, it's not a whole lot of people doing it.

I think Robols was interviewed like three or four years ago. He said he's working a lot, but he's just one of two in Los Angeles. So and I thought that just sounded astounding, but again, if you think about the media covered trials, so just aren't that many of them. So you don't need hundreds and thousands of sketch artists around the country just to pick up work. Sketch artists are becoming bailiffs. Yeah, the bailiffs like got the gun in one hand and sketching on the other. It's tough, man,

it's tough out there. So, um, one of the places you can get work, if you're a reliable sketch artist is by drawing the Supreme Court because you just aren't going to get a camera in there. Like anybody who listens to MPR News is familiar with Nina Totenberg's like play by play of um Supreme Court arguments and discussions, and she's kind of like a verbal sketch artist. But um, the point is here there's not any media allowed in the Supreme Court. Champ just today with the abortion proceedings.

I was looking at pictures. I saw some last night of the sketch artists and it was probably done by Arthur Lean. Arthur maybe the only person to him for the Supreme Court, but I know that he does the Scotus blog and h for NBC, so maybe they probably let more than one end for something this big, but

apparently it's uh court reporters have round or I'm sorry. Um. Sketch artists have roundly said it's a lot easier to draw someone like Charles Manson than it is to draw some just sort of normal looking normal I don't know, like Tom Brady or something like that. Yeah, that was

very famous. Jane Rosenberg sketch Tom tom Brady almost that Tom Barringer um during the deflate Gate proceedings and and it was, you know, Tom Brady is a traditionally a handsome person, and he looked a little bit like Lurch and it became a meme and it was pretty funny. The best one I saw, the best of me my saw was um, that sketch of Tom Brady photoshopped onto the Hunchback from Hunchback and Notre Dame the Disney movie. Really it was perfect. If she got a lot of

press out of that, she did the others. Best one I saw was that sketch of Tom Brady's head on the potato Jesus meme right right. The fit pretty well. Team. Uh. The final little thing here that Livia found, which I thought was pretty great in a testament to how good of work that she's doing for us so far. But she she found that they sometimes attorneys, and this doesn't

surprise me. They will buy some of these sketches. I guess sometimes either if it's a famous case or early in their career and you know, have it framed, so you know, just I think it's just sort of a symbolic thing because there they all, even though they have different styles, you can always tell a courtroom sketch. Oh you don't think to have a framed courtroom sketch of yourself and you finally make it as an attorney is probably a pretty big deal. Yeah, especially if you're standing

and pointing at the accused. Yeah, they're really dramatic like that. Sure, I've always wanted the Wall Street Journal to do a piece on us, so we could get a drawing of us like that. That's a really like um um, easily recognizable type of drawing too. Yeah, totally come on Wall Street or you know, Mad Magazine. Maybe it's defunct, Chuck, I know, but this guy's still draw They can bring him out her retirement. I want more Drucker. I think he passed away. But oh God, to be drawn by

more drunk that would be pretty amazing. Or I'd take Jack Davis too. He did the ug A football um guy in the seventies. Now that's right. I got that coke bottle in my bar still any care? Maybe someday Chuck commemorative coke bottle. Uh. Well, since Chuck said commemorative coke bottle, I think that's it, which means it's time for a listener mail everybody. I'm gonna call this another

dentistry email. This is from Kayla. Hey, guys, really enjoyed your episode about dentistry and currently a fourth year dental student in the US graduating in May. I don't want to add a couple of things here. Green Black was one of the fathers of dynastry that you mentioned, but

you didn't say much about him. Green, commonly known as G. D. Black in the dental realm, invented the pedal driven dental drill and also outlined the best way to prepare tooth for cavity filling, which is still the method used today.

And secondly, since you focused on the history of dynastry, I wanted to mention st uh Apollonia, the patron saint of Dynastry and the year two forty nine, Apollonia, a deaconess was beaten for refusing to renounce her faith, and the beating caused all of her teeth to shatter and fall out. She then elected to be burned alive instead of renounced her faith, and even jumped into the fire herself.

After her death, she was made the patron state of Dentnastry and Toothaches and there's even a painting of her in the louver. And this is uh from Kayla, who was just introduced to the show last year by her brother and now was a big fan. Nice, thanks Kayla, Good luck Dynasty. Yeah, for sure, that's a that's one of those examples. I knew both of those, they just didn't make it in the show, and it's just so excruciating to be called out about those later on. It's

okay to miss things. Well, thanks a lot, Kayla, and good luck with dental school. Uh, and thank you for writing in and welcome to the show, right, Chuck. That's right. Well, if you want to be like Kayla, you can send us an email to Stuff Podcast. Did I Heart radio dot com? Stuff you Should Know is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.