Chapter 7
Covering the Courts: Story Ideas
By Maurice Possley

			In this sidebar
			• General Guidance • Story and   Enterprise Ideas

The court beat—whether state or federal—is a fertile area for stories that go beyond the breaking news of the day. The trick, of course, is to find the time to ferret them out, do the reporting and then produce them.

General Guidance

• As you go about your daily beat checks and while sitting in courtrooms waiting for a particular case to be called, keep a separate notebook to take down ideas for stories as they come to you.
• Make notes about other cases you come across so you can look them up later to see if your initial interest is sustained. Mark down lawyers you see and make a note to call them later to chat about the case they were in court on if it interests you.
• Chat up lawyers—both prosecutors and defense attorneys—about ideas for stories that haven’t been done or have been overlooked. This works well for court clerks and bailiffs in individual courtrooms
• Keep a day book or future file. Watch the newspaper for stories that have the appearance of turning into court cases. Keep files by topic and date.
• Court reporters spend most of their time covering breaking news—whether it is trials, sentencings, indictments or filings of new civil cases. Try to figure out ways to look at these cases in a broader sense.

Story and Enterprise Ideas

1. Whether it be civil or criminal cases, learn how jurisdictions categorize cases and whether long-term analysis can be performed on such matters as sentencing practices, frequency of bringing particular causes or action or indictments, average disposition time.
2. Profiles of judges, lawyers, and other players in the courts, particularly if these individuals are going to be or have been playing a high-profile role in newsworthy cases.
3. A profile of a particular courtroom of interest—pro se court or drunk driving court, for example.
4. An explanatory piece on how the jury pool is selected.
5. How does, if it does, race factor into the assessment of the death penalty? Examine murder cases where the death penalty is sought and compare them to cases that might be eligible, but where prosecutors choose not to seek it.
6. Compare sentencing practices of individual judges to determine if some judges impose harsher sentences than others.
7. Expand a story about a particular civil case to discuss broader issues, such as freedom of speech by government employees, housing discrimination, job discrimination. For example, have lawsuits changed the law under which companies hire and fire employees?
8. Compare reversal rates for judges by examining appellate opinions.
9. Examine how the public defender’s office operates—are they understaffed and underpaid?
10. Examine police or jail guard brutality allegations by tracking down lawsuits against the police department and jail officials to determine repeat offenders or whether there is a trend—dropping or rising.
11. Use a single lawsuit involving a constitutional issue to examine the matter more broadly and make a comparison to rulings in other states or cities.
12. Profile a victims’ rights advocacy group.
13. Examine how the probation office works.
14. Have changes in sentencing laws contributed to a drop/rise in the crime rate?
15. Ferret out the cases where inmates have filed for DNA testing and follow them up to see how many were actually found to be guilty.
16. Examine your local grand jury system. How are grand jurors selected? Are they representative of the community at large? Are they truly independent or just an investigative arm of prosecutors?
17. Review search warrant applications to see how often police and prosecutors use confidential informants. Law enforcement records regarding payments to informants are public record.
18. What percentage of civil cases are decided by jury trial today versus five or 10 years ago? Are more cases settling or being dismissed? Is there a trend toward private, secret arbitrations? What about the use of private judges and private trials?
19. Are jury verdicts in civil cases really out of control? What percentage of jury verdicts favor plaintiff versus defendant. Have damage awards gone up or down during the past decade?
20. Are there laws on the books that are simply being ignored? If so, why? Are these laws so old and outdated that they are unenforceable? For example, many states still have adultery or co-habitation or profane bumper sticker laws. Do police ever charge people under these statutes?