Jones, Star 1962(?)—

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Star Jones 1962(?)—

Attorney, television host, mediator

In 1994 former New York City prosecuting attorney Star Jones made the leap from public service to public persona when her syndicated television show, Jones & Jury, began airing on stations across the United States. Prior to this Jones had honed her skills as a legal correspondent for both NBC and Court TV. Before that, the lawyer had spent several years with one of the nation’s busiest district attorney’s offices. Jones’s experience in broadcasting had involved the explanation of complicated courtroom issues during news coverage of high-profile cases, as well as offering her insider opinion. Media analysts often lauded her eloquence before the cameras. This talent was put to great use in her real-life half-hour courtroom drama, a show that catapulted Jones further into an ever-widening spotlight.

Starlet Marie Jones recalls thinking about entering the law profession at an unusually early age. Television clearly impacted the youngster’s imagination and helped her see a world beyond her grandmother’s house in Badin, North Carolina. As a six-year-old, she would pretend to be orating in front of a judge and jury. She also remembered that her grandmother would watch the soap opera Another World and would comment on the predicaments suffered by one character by saying “That child needs a lawyer.”

Sassy Youth

Jones spent the first six years of her life with her grandmother while her mother finished college. In 1969, the school-age Jones joined her mother in a Trenton, New Jersey, public housing project. Her mother worked for the city government and sent Jones and her younger sister to parochial schools. Jones recalls being sassy from an early age, which she maintains is a partial reason for her success. “I had a smart mouth and could make cutting remarks,” Jones told People magazine. “That’s probably why I became a good lawyer.”

In 1979 Jones entered American University and shortened her name to its abbreviated form. Her mother had told her that when she was born her eyes were extremely dark and seemed to possess small starlike twinkles, hence the name. In 1992 Jones joked with New York writer Degen Pener about how ill-suited her moniker seems for the serious vocation of law, commenting, “It

At a Glance…

Born Starlet Marie Jones, c 1962; daughter of Shirley (a human services administrator) and James Byard (stepfather; a municipal security chief). Education; Received degree from American University, c. 1983; University of Houston Law Center, J.D., 1986.

While in college, served as national vice-president for undergraduate affairs for the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, early 1980s; Kings County (New York) District Attorney’s Office, Brooklyn, NY, member of prosecution staff, 1986–91, senior assistant district attorney, 1991–92; Court TV, correspondent, 1991; NBC-TV, New York City, legal correspondent, 1992–93; /ones & Jury (syndicated television program produced by Group W Productions), Los Angeles, CA, host and co-owner, 1994—.

Member: Alpha Kappa Alpha.

Addresses: Office —Group W Television, 6500 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90048.

sounds like a stripper’s name.” During college she took an active role in student government, eventually rising to high office in her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, as its national vice president of undergraduate affairs. She entered the University of Houston Law Center and earned her law degree in 1986. At graduation time she impressed recruiters from the Kings County District Attorney’s office, the prosecuting office in charge of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, and she accepted their job offer.

Jones’s decision to become a public prosecutor had been influenced by her parents’ choice of careers: her mother is Trenton’s human-services director, while her stepfather is head of security for the city. This helped instill in her a desire to serve the public as well.

Involved in High-Profile Cases

Jones’s tenure with the Kings County D.A.’s office involved her in some of the most difficult and high-profile cases of the era. Brooklyn has its fair share of New York City’s—and urban America’s—troubles; complicating matters are the intertwined demons of poverty and crime, which sometimes combine with an incendiary third element—racial tension. One of the most serious incidents of Jones’s career took place in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights enclave: a member of its Hasidic community of orthodox Jews was charged with the motor-vehicle death of an African American child. The incident itself, and the outcome of the trial after the Kings County D. A. ’s office rested its case, provoked serious clashes on the streets of Crown Heights.

Jones also became involved in other notorious real-life judicial dramas, including one that landed a 14-year-old defendant a jail term of nine years to life. Jones argued the case against the young man, who had shot another teenager on a playground, and the court’s tough sentence provoked some criticism. The defendant’s family questioned how Jones could “as a black woman do this to a black child?,” she recalled in Essence. Yet the former prosecutor remembered that “never once during the entire proceedings did he show an ounce of remorse. I know in my heart I did the right thing, even though it is a case I will never forget.”

By 1991 Jones’s devotion to her job had earned her a promotion to senior assistant district attorney in Brooklyn. In this post she gained expertise on some of the toughest types of trials in her field—the one-witness crimes that involve little concrete evidence. As prosecuting attorney, Jones convinced several juries of the veracity of the single witness and his or her testimony regarding the violent crime in question. Out of the last 40 homicide cases she prosecuted, only two did not result in convictions. In one of the trials, she secured a 66-year prison sentence for a serial sex offender who had avoided incarceration in four earlier court appearances. Jones enjoyed her sometimes difficult job and admits to becoming personally involved in both the cases and the lives of the youths she encountered. John Riley, a former coworker of hers, told People that Jones “walks into a room and lights it up.” Such star power eventually paid off for the prosecuting attorney, albeit in a rather unexpected way.

In 1991 a colleague at the Brooklyn D.A.’s office was asked to appear on Court TV. The colleague declined but passed Jones’s name along to the cable television station. Her first appearance was in the summer of 1991, and she quickly became a regular face on Court TV, especially during the William Kennedy Smith rape trial in Palm Beach, Florida. Soon NBC-TV was interested. “I was sitting in my office in Brooklyn trying to convince a teenage witness to testify when the phone rang,” Jones told Black Enterprise about the day the network phoned. “I thought it was a prank call and hung up.”

This inauspicious start did not hinder Jones on her new course, however, and within a short time she had left the Kings County D.A. office for the plusher carpets of NBC studios in Manhattan. As the network’s legal correspondent, Jones became a familiar face to viewers by late 1992 during such highly publicized cases as the rape trial of boxer Mike Tyson and the criminal trial of Los Angeles Police Department officers for the 1991 beating of Rodney King. She began appearing regularly on the network’s morning show, Today, as well as on NBC Nightly News.

Television Career Took Off

In part because of increased interest in the American judicial system, Jones’s career on television took off quickly. As an attorney, she detects a deeper meaning in the public’s fascination with the sensational court cases that have been a staple on Court TV, NBC, and other mainstream news sources since the early 1990s. Jones said in New York: “If those cases get people to talk, that’s very positive. I think people are watching trials because they want to know: Is there fairness in our criminal-justice system? Do you have to have money to get off? Is there racial prejudice? Does a woman’s word carry as much weight as a man’s word?”

Group W Communications, a producer of syndicated television shows, was so impressed by Jones’s work on Court TV and NBC that they offered her a show of her own. Group W’s offer of partial ownership in the program would give her some measure of artistic control. Jones & Jury debuted in September of 1994 and was lauded for its combination of two ratings-garnering formats—the confessional talk show and the real-life courtroom saga first popularized by such shows as The People’s Court.

Drawn from the docket of California’s small-claims division, the cases Jones moderates on Jones & Jury sometimes become heated. Primarily involving disputes of $5,000 or less between private parties, the details are presented in the plaintiffs’ and defendants’—sometimes relatives of one another—own words in an occasionally acrimonious environment. Jones acts as mediator, calming tempers and explaining issues to both the studio and home audiences. The studio audience—the “jury” of Jones & Jury —vote their verdict on the case by the end of the show. With their determination, Jones issues the final decision.

Jones’s new role as television personality necessitated a move from the Big Apple to Los Angeles, and the legal expert enjoys lounging by the pool of her new house in her spare time. She considers herself fortunate to be part of a close-knit family and credits them with both instilling in her a drive to succeed and keeping her feet on the ground. Jones does admit, however, to receiving a small thrill when viewers stop her on the street to inquire about the show and its real-life cast of characters.

Despite the initial success of Jones & Jury, its host remains philosophical about her career in the entertainment industry. She confessed to People that she sometimes reminds herself that she has a degree in law as well as a list of the country’s biggest law firms in her Filofax—“I always keep it there because you never know what’s going to happen.” she says.