Judge Lopez takes tough style to TV
She lost temper on state bench, but now lands new role
 Former Massachusetts Superior Court judge Maria Lopez |
Former Massachusetts Superior Court judge Maria Lopez has a message for her detractors -- especially the local politicians and attorneys who criticized her outspoken behavior on the bench and the sentence of parole she handed down to Charles ``Ebony" Horton for kidnapping and assaulting a child in 2000.
Thank you.
If there had been no public outcry over Lopez barking at prosecutors, there is a good chance that the judge would have missed the opportunity to become what she calls ``the poster child for the post-menopausal woman" as the star of ``Judge Maria Lopez," a nationally syndicated daytime court show that debuts Monday on WSBK-TV (Channel 38).
``I used to regret having lost my temper at that prosecutor, but now I don't," she says in her throaty smoker's voice. ``In fact, I should probably send thank-you notes to these people. If not for all the things that happened to me, I wouldn't be here today."
If her demeanor at lunch this week at a Newton restaurant is any indication, Lopez is savoring her new life as a TV justice. Lopez was downright bubbly, throwing off one-liners like a cherished cocktail party guest and laughing heartily at her good fortune of falling into a new job where her passion and brusque manner are welcomed and which comes complete with daily hair and make-up sessions.
``They want me to be controversial," Lopez says. ``They want conflict drama on television. As I understand it, one of the reasons why these court shows are so popular is that they provide conflict drama and resolution, all in half an hour. People at home want to be entertained, and they want to think, `God, these people, how do they live these lives? Who gets into that kind of situation?' "
The infamous clip of Lopez yelling at Suffolk County prosecutor David Deakin, saying ``You may sit down. You may sit down now or I'll get a court officer to make you sit down!" -- the clip that aired endlessly on local newscasts in 2000 -- was used to help sell the show in pitch meetings to TV executives last year.
``The situation is ironic. Her loss of temper ultimately landed her on national television as the next Judge Judy or Joe Brown," says David Frank, a former state prosecutor and reporter for Lawyer's Weekly, referring to two other TV justices with popular shows. ``But I think her time out of the spotlight helped her to realize that what happened to her ultimately was to her advantage."
Lopez, who presides over a courtroom set in Manhattan, sits on the bench wearing her soon-to-be signature Technicolor blouses under the traditional black robe. She hears cases from litigants such as the coed who rented a room from a wealthy Los Angeles businessman who was clearly looking for more than a lodger.
Her personality on the television bench mirrors her real-life personality: approachable, but tough when she needs to be. She has an opportunity to read briefs before she tries the TV cases, but most of her rapid-fire decisions are based on questioning the litigants and gut instinct. She claims to be an impeccable judge of character, although she uses a far saltier term for the skill.
Lopez, 53, was not looking for a career as a TV judge. Her transformation began in 2000, when she ordered probation for a man who had sexually assaulted an 11-year-old boy. The outcry that followed led to a hearing before the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, where a hearing officer ruled that she had lied under oath and abused her office. She was ordered to serve a six-month suspension and apologize. Instead she resigned her judgeship.
``I thought I was misunderstood and mischaracterized," she says. ``There were a lot of agendas at play, none of which captured what I had been thinking about the case and who I am."
She stops, glances at her publicist, and adds, ``Let's talk about the show instead. All of this will be in the book."
After 25 years in law, Lopez says, she enjoyed the break provided by her resignation. In the months after ward , she was a visiting scholar at the Women's Study Resource Center at Brandeis University, worked on a memoir, and traveled with her husband, Boston Phoenix publisher Stephen Mindi ch , to South America, India, and China. The pair split their time between homes in Newton and Provincetown, with a timeshare in Miami. Lopez also has two sons in their early 20s from her first marriage.
It was a call from local entertainment lawyer George Tobia Jr. that launched her new career. A television agent was searching for a new judge, specifically a Latina judge who was not afraid to speak her mind. Tobia recommended Lopez, and soon she was having lunch in Los Angeles with the man who is now her agent. A pilot was shot in June 2005 and in October, the show was picked up by
Sony Pictures Television executive producer Michael Rourke says he knew as soon as he met Lopez that she would be his next daytime television judge.
``We met with her, and I knew within five minutes that this was the judge that I wanted to work with," Rourke says. ``She lit up the room."
Lopez says her Cuban heritage gave her a sense of humor and bubbly personality. Her parents left a violent Cuba when she was 8, and lived behind a tropical fish store in Miami for three months before moving to Connecticut.
``I'm Cuban, and if you go to Cuba, the one thing you'll find consistently in the people who live there is that they all have a sense of humor," she says. ``It's like a national character trait. We joke about the most adverse conditions."
Lopez protested the Vietnam War at Westover Air Force base and went to Woodstock. After graduating from Smith College and Boston University Law School, she served as assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office, and then served as counsel to the Office for Refugees and Immigrants. She does not view ``liberal" and ``lenient" as the same thing, and says her reputation for issuing light sentences is unwarranted.
Again, she stops herself from talking about the past, and a broad smile comes over her face as she looks ahead to the show that will soon be seen by millions daily.
``How I handled things as a woman and as a Latina was alien to the system in Massachusetts," she says. ``But my style of handling things has led me [to] this, and I'm having the time of my life. Oh, the irony."
Christopher Muther can be reached at muther@globe.com. 
