Cameras In Courtrooms

Cameras In Courtrooms The controversy over the use of news cameras in courtrooms has persisted for seventy years. As of 2005, all fifty states allow some type of camera coverage, most including both trial and appellate courts. Moreover, there appears to be a trend toward allowing cameras in federal courts, eventually including the Supreme Court itself.

Aversion to cameras emerged in the late 1930s following the highly publicized trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann for the kidnapping and murder of the infant son of Charles Lindbergh. Shocked by the sensational coverage of the trial, the American Bar Association recommended in 1937 that, although it was not the major malefactor, all courtroom photography be eliminated. Congress then enacted Rule 53 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, prohibiting all photography or broadcasting of federal criminal cases. Most states followed suit, so that by 1962, all except Texas and Colorado forbade cameras in courtrooms.

In Estes v. Texas (1965) the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Billy Sol Estes, holding that coverage of the trial, which included some use of cameras, violated Estes's due process rights. Four justices of the five‐member majority found that televising trials, at least under then‐existing technology, was inherently unconstitutional. The fifth justice took a narrower view based on the specific circumstances of the Estes case and suggested that technological developments might lead to change one day. Meanwhile, some states continued to experiment with courtroom cameras. The Supreme Court revisited the cameras question in Chandler v. Florida (1981) and unanimously upheld the Chandler defendants' burglary convictions despite the fact that a brief part of that trial was televised over their objections. Chief Justice Warren Burger, writing for the Court, held that states should be free to develop their own procedures for broadcasting trials, and that such television coverage was not an inherent violation of due process.

Although the Court declined to endorse explicitly the broadcasting of trials, many states read the decision as an invitation to open their courtrooms to television. Court TV, specializing in camera coverage of trials in state courts, signed on in 1991 and was reaching seventy million cable subscribers by 2003. As of that year all fifty states had changed their rules to allow some televised coverage of courtroom proceedings, on either an experimental or permanent basis.

From 1991 to 1994, the federal courts conducted an experiment with courtroom cameras, after which most involved said they supported extended use of cameras. In 1996, the U.S. Judicial Conference voted to let each circuit decide whether to allow cameras in appeal courts: only the Second and Ninth Circuits approved their use.

Despite Rule 53, trial judges in some federal courts have permitted occasional camera coverage. After a vote by Congress, closed‐circuit broadcast feeds were permitted in 1998 to allow witnesses, victims, and families to observe the trial of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, which had been moved from Denver to Oklahoma City. Similarly, a limited closed‐circuit broadcast was permitted in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the first to be charged in connection with the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks.

Portions of President Bill Clinton's videotaped grand jury testimony were released to broadcasters, and his impeachment hearings were broadcast live in 1998–1999, as was the appeal in the Microsoft antitrust case in 2001.

For several years, Congress considered the “Sunshine in the Courtroom Act,” which would allow camera coverage of all federal courts at the discretion of the presiding judge. Traditional objections to cameras include their presumed impact on the trials and the added burden on the court. However, studies by court administrators and social scientists fail to support the speculation that cameras interfere with the judicial process.

The Supreme Court does not allow photographic or broadcast coverage of proceedings. However, as of this writing, the Court has granted broadcast access at least four times, including delayed release of the audiotapes of arguments in the 2000 Bush‐Gore election cases (see Bush v. Gore) and in the 2003 University of Michigan affirmative action case (see Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger), as well as in the four‐hour special McCain‐Feingold campaign‐finance reform case (see McConnell v. Federal Election Commission), also heard in 2003.

See also Due Process, Procedural; Speech and the Press.

Lynn Mather; revised by and S. L. Alexander