University:
Georgia Southern University
Course:
ENGL 1102 | Composition II
Academic year:

2024
Views:

309

Pages:

2
Author:

Jalen W.

Friedman starts The Big Trial: Law as a Public Spectacle with the OJ Simpson trial in the 1990s. This was an efficient method to define a "Big Trial" through an example. Friedman's book concentrates on what he refers to as headline trials, or criminal trials that generate headlines. Friedman devotes the first chapter to describing the various sorts of large trials that can be conducted, even though many trials can fall into multiple categories. With his numerous examples, he provides a thorough and understandable explanation. Much easier to comprehend than the readings we completed last week. Friedman is creating this book as a pioneering think piece on Big Trials as a whole. Rather than looking specifically into a certain headline trial, he uses examples of these trials and ties them together to see what they have in common and what makes them a big trial. Of course, being a public trial is one of the primary and necessary components of a large trial. If no one is aware of the trial, it cannot be one that makes headlines. Of course, there aren't supposed to be any secret trials in the US. According to Friedman, the major trials are the ones that garner national attention. He goes on to discuss the penalties in addition to the fact that the trial is public. He talks about the transition throughout time from public punishment (stocks and whippings) to prisons that are out of the public's thoughts and out of sight. It is a means of definitively ending the public trial frenzy. Every process that Friedman calls a political process has some notable parts that attract people's attention. Whether it's a trial where either the victim or the defendant is a rich and popular celebrity, whether it's a political trial that's very popular because it's the government that interests people, whether it's corruption and fraud, the tabloid Be it paper and then mystery, we don't know it yet. about something. There's always something that makes people pay attention to what happens during these exams, usually just out of curiosity. There is something about these processes that makes them different from other processes, and that is what Friedman analyzes in his book. He does a remarkable job of analysis, leaving the reader in no doubt as to how and why individual endeavors should be defined. But this book invites you to think about trials you know. Our focus here is not on answering exactly what makes a trial sensational, but rather on inviting us to think about how all these features combine to produce a high-profile trial.