BRUCE Cutler, who made a huge name for himself with his courtroom theatrics, is going to try them out on TV.
Ch. 11 said over the weekend that it will air a new daytime courtroom show, “Jury Duty,” this fall with – get this! – Cutler as the judge.
The show is a twist on the usual courtroom serials because the jury is made up of three celebrities who are allowed to ask questions of the litigants and whose deliberations will be part of the show.
Cutler is scheduled for a lot of face time on TV this year.
As well as the new, daily court show, he is representing music producer Phil Spector in his spectacular California murder trial set to start later this spring.
For one of the first times since the O.J. case, the Spector judge has allowed Court TV to air gavel-to-gavel TV coverage of the trial.
“Jury Duty” is unusual in that it is not being produced by one of the major studios, but by casino owner Vincent Dymon.
Dymon claimed in a lawsuit last fall that Hollywood giant Warner Bros. tried to steal Cutler away to be the judge on a similar show, “Celebrity Jury.”
When Cutler refused, Warner signed former Westchester County D.A. Jeanine Pirro to star in his place.
But the Pirro show failed to find enough interested stations earlier this year, so the start was delayed until 2008 at the earliest.
In three separate trials, Cutler got the late mob boss John Gotti off – earning Gotti the nickname the “Teflon Don.”