Judge Joseph Wapner, who presided over ‘The People’s Court,’ dies at 97

LOS ANGELES — He was a retired Los Angeles County Superior Court judge who became an unlikely American TV icon, a white-haired jurist who was dubbed the “Solomon of Small Claims.” Judge Joseph A. Wapner, who presided over “The People’s Court” for 12 years in the 1980s and ’90s, has died, a family member told The…