The idea came to me last week while watching American Idol—an idea for a new reality TV show that is sure to be a hit. Prosecuting the Starz! The format is simple. Prosecuting attorneys with a passion to advance their careers compete with one another by trumping up ever more outrageous charges against well-known public figures. The concept combines lawyers and celebrities. It can’t miss.

Producers need not look far for contestants. Just last week Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald wrapped up his seemingly endless investigation of the notorious CIA leak case with a successful prosecution of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby was convicted of obstructing justice and lying to federal officers investigating the blown cover of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Fitzgerald definitely earns bonus points for creativity on this one. Libby, it turns out, was not the one who leaked Plame’s identity at all. That was Richard Armitage, a former State Department official with no particular love for Cheney and the Bush administration. Unfortunately for our contestant, Armitage’s disclosure was not “willful” and thus not subject to prosecution. But Fitzgerald was not about to let two years of criminal investigation go to waste simply because there was no crime. Hence his inspired prosecution of Libby, a high-profile public figure, for covering up his office’s non-role in a non-crime.

Fitzgerald is not our only superstar prosecutor, however. Contestant number two is Mike Nifong, former North Carolina prosecutor in the Duke rape case. Nifong became an instant celebrity with his aggressive investigation of sexual assault allegations against several member of the Duke University lacrosse team in the spring of 2006. So dogged was his prosecution that he was able to triumph over a tough challenger in his primary campaign for District Attorney that May.

Nifong’s case later began to unravel due to a lack of evidence and the ever-changing testimony of the alleged victim, but that did not discourage our prosecutor. His case was further damaged in December when court documents revealed that Nifong had withheld potentially exculpatory evidence since April. Nifong was forced to drop the rape charges against the students and was soon removed from the case entirely by the state attorney general. While these might count against our contestant, on the plus-side his name has become a neologism: to Nifong (verb)—“to trump up criminal charges based on flimsy evidence for political purposes.”

If we are going to include Nifong on our program, we need to air it soon. The North Carolina Bar is pursuing ethics charges against him as we speak.

Our final contestant is James B. Comey, the U.S. Attorney who brought that corporate desperado and domestic maven Martha Stewart to justice. Like Fitzgerald, the prosecution first sought more serious charges against Stewart, namely insider trading. But the prosecution was tripped up by a small inconvenience. To be guilty of insider trading, one must have a fiduciary relationship with the company involved. That is, one must actually be an “insider.” Martha Stewart had no such relationship to ImClone, the company whose stock she sold, rendering insider trading charges problematic at best.

When the judge refused to indulge Comey’s creative interpretation of insider trading laws, the prosecutor brought obstruction of justice charges against Stewart instead. Like Libby, Stewart was convicted of lying about a crime that never took place. In most circumstances, obstruction charges absent an underlying criminal event are never pursued; but then again, rarely is the object of prosecution so huge a celebrity as Stewart. Who could blame a prosecutor for seizing such an obvious opportunity to advance his career at another’s expense?

Prosecuting the Starz! would have it all. Celebrities in trouble. Courtroom drama. Star witnesses. And instead of just getting voted off the island, public figures would do hard time. America will love it. Maybe we could get Eliot Spitzer to host.