It is almost impossible to write a bad courtroom scene.
Court proceedings are the structuring of conflict into ritual.
That is almost the definition of drama. There is drama inherent in even the most boring and technical court proceedings and even reading a verbatim transcript can usually bring it out. This is why Court TV has such a large following, and why fictional and reality television shows about the law, the police, and the courts can always depend on an audience. The courtroom drama is likely to involve conflicts between the written law and individual morality, or between differing concepts of morality, enunciated far more explicitly than most of us ordinarily think about them. In this module, we will explore both historical and contemporary examples of courtroom drama.