televising trials) because people don't remember the indignity of the
Simpson trial."
California courts opened their doors to television in 1984, subject to
the judge's approval, after a four-year study of the effects of camera
coverage.
During the next decade, hearings and trial testimony appeared on local
TV. Among the high-profile cases filmed by the cameras was the 1992
trial of four Los Angeles police officers charged with beating
motorist Rodney King. Their acquittals brought riots in Los Angeles
and elsewhere.
There was little controversy about television coverage until Simpson's
1995 trial on charges of murdering his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and
her friend Ronald Goldman.
Some of the leading players -- prosecutors Marcia Clark and
Christopher Darden, defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran, police witness
Mark Fuhrman and Judge Ito -- became instant celebrities. Cochran's
closing-argument doggerel about a glove found at the scene ("If it
doesn't fit, you must acquit") was replayed endlessly. Law professors
found sidelight careers as TV commentators. And Simpson's acquittal
touched off a furious debate about whether the coverage had affected
the trial and its outcome.
Afterward, the state Judicial Council amended its rules on televised
trials to bar photographing courtroom spectators, who were shown
during the Simpson trial, and to reinforce a ban on filming jurors,
one of whom was shown accidentally. The new rules also spelled out
factors for judges to consider when TV crews sought admission,
including the "security and dignity of the court."
A report in 2000 by the state Administrative Office of the Courts,
covering the previous three years, contradicted claims that judges had
become uniformly hostile to camera coverage. The report, based on
information from 32 of the state's 58 counties, said judges had
considered 2,116 requests for electronic media coverage -- television,
still cameras or audio recording -- and granted 81 percent of them.
The report said 55 percent of the requests were for TV cameras but
didn't say what percentage of those had been approved. It said
applications for electronic coverage of actual trials made up 12
percent of the total, and the approval rate for those requests was
slightly below the overall average.
Nonetheless, "post-O.J., it was very, very difficult to get a camera
in any court," said Kelli Sager, a Los Angeles media attorney.
While insisting that studies have found TV cameras to have no effect
on jurors, witnesses or trial proceedings, Sager said, "it's been
difficult to convince judges." She said the rules give judges
unlimited rationales to deny camera access without having to state a
reason and make their orders virtually impossible to appeal.
Still, she said, within a few years of the Simpson trial, judges
became more willing to televise pretrial hearings and other
proceedings separate from trial testimony. Court TV, one of her
clients, has been allowed to tape entire trials for later broadcast --
sometimes lurid non-celebrity criminal cases, sometimes garden-variety
disputes that illustrate the breadth of the judicial system, Sager
said.
The televising of Spector's trial appears to reflect that shift in
judicial attitudes and also could test the ability of the judiciary
and the broadcast media to accommodate one another after more than a
decade of post-Simpson adjustments.
The 67-year-old music tycoon is a lesser celebrity than Simpson but
remains well known for his "Wall of Sound" hits dating from the
1960s.
He is accused of killing Clarkson, a 40-year-old actress he had just
met, at his suburban Alhambra home four years ago.
Media attorneys say viewers who tune in for a peek at low deeds in
high places will wind up with an education about the legal system.
"I've heard judges complain that (TV stations) only try to get in (to
court) in a high-profile case, a celebrity case, where nobody's going
to learn anything," Sager said. "The truth is, once people watch,
they
learn a lot about the law and the judicial process."
That was disputed by Ephraim Margolin, a San Francisco attorney and
former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers.
Margolin took part in the California Supreme Court's first-ever
televised hearing in the early 1980s and recalled the now-deceased
Justice Stanley Mosk's complaint at the time that he felt like a
member of a theater company -- a view Margolin now shares.
Television "fleshes out whatever prejudices you bring with you,"
Margolin said. "It causes people to see things in a different way
because they never see the entire picture."
While skeptical of the ability of juries to disregard TV coverage,
Margolin said he could accept the presence of cameras if they were
required to cover a trial gavel-to-gavel, rather than filming snippets
for the evening news and then leaving. "Otherwise, we are pretending
that we are opening (the court) to the public, but in reality we
opening it to slogans," he said.
Sager retorted that 30 seconds of televised testimony from a witness
is surely more informative than a report without the footage. And
Peter Scheer, an attorney and executive director of the California
First Amendment Coalition, a media advocacy group, said TV actually
might change courtrooms for the better.
"Knowing there's a crowd watching, I think, will encourage judges to
prepare better, the quality of their rulings will be higher, and the
same will be true for lawyers," he said. "Judges who can't control
their courtrooms are not competent judges, and sometimes the only way
we can know that is by having a camera in the courtroom."
Where to watch
Court TV plans to show the entire Phil Spector murder trial. It is
Channel 65 on cable systems in San Francisco, Oakland and much of the
rest of the Bay Area.
On some systems, it is Channel 69.
E-mail Bob Egelko at
begelko@sfchronicle.com.
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