Panelists split over benefits, dangers of cameras in courtroom
Jin Moon
Special to The Freedom Forum Online
04.12.00
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If ever there was a court case that belonged on television, the Amadou Diallo trial in Albany, N.Y., was that case, Fred Graham, chief anchor and managing editor of Court TV, said during a discussion Tuesday at Newseum/NY of placing still and TV cameras in courtrooms.
"There was a real concern on people's part that if the case didn't come out in a way that was widely understood there could be riots here," Graham said.
Graham said the New York City community was hurt when the Diallo case was moved from the Bronx to Albany. As a way to defend themselves in front of the community, the litigants in the case wanted cameras in the courtroom because they wanted the general public to see their side of the story. In a way, they wanted to justify their actions to the public in the hope of gaining sympathy and approval, he said.
Graham said nobody believed Court TV's motion to televise the Diallo trial would prove successful, but when the 1952 ban on cameras in the courtroom was declared unconstitutional by Judge Joseph Tiresi, Court TV was nothing short of delighted.
"First we were stunned, and then we cheered. We popped some corks, I gotta tell you, later that evening. It was such a long shot that we almost did it just to make a point," he said.
Panelists, however, were divided on the issue of whether permitting cameras in the courtroom is a First Amendment right or an impediment to fair trial. The panel discussion was sponsored by The First Amendment Center and moderated by its executive director, Kenneth A. Paulson.
Jack Litman, a high-profile criminal defense attorney of Litman, Asche & Gioiella, LLP, strongly opposes cameras in the courtroom. He said cameras would harm a defendant's right to a fair trial because television would either sensationalize the case or simply not air the trial at all.
"The cases that either have sex or murder, those are the only cases that television people want to put on because those are the only cases that are going to grab the ratings," he said.
Litman also said that most trial coverage is not balanced because most cases are not covered gavel-to-gavel. Instead, only snippets of the trial actually are televised.
Litman said defendants should be given veto power over a decision to have cameras present — noting that since all parties in the Diallo case agreed, he didn't have a problem in this case. But Litman warned that people should be wary of allowing cameras into the courtroom on a regular basis.
"We do not want the sacred area of the courtroom, which is by definition solemn, tedious, and dignified, to be overrun by a system whose values are based on ratings, entertainment value and profit," Litman said. "And I fear, when you put the camera under the tent of an American institution you do more than illuminate it. You profoundly change that institution. And I would be very, very careful about doing it with one of the last very important institutions we still have — the pursuit, the careful pursuit, of justice."
He didn't find any redeeming aspects to having cameras in the courtroom if the litigants don't want them there.
"I don't see the countervailing benefit to the principle of quiet, uninterrupted justice in the courtroom because, remember, the courtroom is open," he said. "There are reporters there that could enunciate to the world what they saw in the courtroom. The question is whether adding cameras routinely over the objection of the litigants is valuable proposition."
William R. Martin, attorney for Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, said the public has the First Amendment right to have access to the courtrooms, and judges and lawyers also have the right to oppose cameras if the case warrants banning cameras.
He said people naturally change in the presence of a camera, but lawyers know how to funnel out the camera presence and focus on the trial.
"Whenever someone snaps your picture, the first thing you do is smile or get your best side or pose," Martin said. "When I walk into a courtroom, or when lawyers who practice at a fairly high level walk in on a major case, in seconds the only thing you have in mind is the jury, the judge and your proceedings. You lose sight of a camera or even a crowd that is behind you."
Litman disagreed: "There's no reason to believe that lawyers, like everybody else, will not play to what plays best on the 6 o'clock news," he said. "They, too, hear the siren call. All you have to do is watch the O.J. Simpson trial, and you see every single lawyer in that case play to the camera."
However, Graham disagreed, saying the cameras should not be blamed for the poor performance of judges, lawyers or litigants. "It's not the camera that causes the disruption. It's the weakness of the judge," he said.
Litman said there were many drawbacks to having cameras in the courtrooms, and these drawbacks are impediments to a fair trial. He pointed out that normally witnesses wouldn't know what other witnesses have testified in court, but with cameras in the courtroom, they can simply flip on the television to hear other witnesses' testimonies.
Graham, noting that Court TV has televised 700 trials, called Litman's point of view "provincial" and New York's former ban on cameras "aberrational."
"If you go out into the country at large where the real people live you'll find out that cameras have been in courts in a wholesale way for the last quarter of a century," Graham said. "It is not new. It is not unique."
He added, "The history of American democracy is that when the public has a right to see what's going on, that improves what the government is doing."
However, Litman held true to his belief that the presence of the camera still changes the climate of the courtroom, and this change in climate could negatively affect the outcome of the trial because people behave differently in front of a camera.
Litman recounted the trial of the pilot of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, a case in which bail was set at $1 million for a federal misdemeanor. He said the judge's decision to set the bail at an inappropriately high amount was because the high profile case was televised.
Joan Rosen, the New York state photo editor for The Associated Press, said she believed cameras were necessary in the courtroom because they allow the public to decide itself on the status of a particular trial.
"What we have without cameras in the courtroom are 250 people in a courtroom," Rosen said. "Some of those 250 people are reporters. What we are getting then are what the reporters choose to put in their papers, what their editors choose to pluck out and put in their papers.
"Another thing we get on TV is the attorneys coming out and putting their spin on the trial that's going inside," she added. "It doesn't give the real public a chance to see what is going on and make their own decisions."
