In private dinners, author and former defense attorney Jens Lapidus has had to explain various verdicts and legal issues. Now he will do it on SVT. At the beginning of next year, "The Trial" will be broadcast, where he guides viewers through six contemporary violent crimes and discusses what determined the legal outcome in them. Exactly which crimes they are, he doesn't reveal now.
I've always felt that there's an enormous interest among people to know more, after stories that seriously take on what happens in the courtroom, he says instead.
Why violent crimes?
There's a lot at stake, and the sentences often become very long.
A Heart Project
In the TV series "Lex Lapidus" for UR, he traveled around the world and explained different countries' legal systems. The new program idea comes from himself.
The true crime genre has grown exponentially, he thinks, but most programs and podcasts end when the murderer is caught or people listen directly to the courtroom recordings. Jens Lapidus wants to provide explanations and analysis instead.
An unfiltered recording may be exciting because you get close to another world, but I want to take it further, says Jens Lapidus.
In the program, prosecutors, lawyers, forensic experts, psychologists, and police officers are also interviewed.
"An incredibly exciting place"
In the USA, unlike in Sweden, it is allowed to film in courtrooms, which has contributed to celebrity trials like the one between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard being streamed worldwide.
Dramatically, the courtroom is an incredibly exciting place where heavy questions are handled, about life and death, truth and morality. But it's very unexplored in Sweden, says Jens Lapidus, who wants to make his contribution to the genre.
He has just bought the interior of a courtroom from a man on Gotland but doesn't want to say anything about how it will be used – it's another TV project.
Corrected: In an earlier version of the text, there was a misleading statement about the courtroom whose interior Jens Lapidus bought.
