TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/061791/0617110.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 6KB | 128 lines

                                                                                LAW, Page 62

Justice Faces a Screen Test


New TV shows are invading the courts in search of real-life drama.
But will they threaten fair trials in the process?

By RICHARD ZOGLIN -- Reported by Daniel S. Levy and Andrea Sachs/
New York


    Roger Ligon, a maintenance worker in Stamford, Conn., was
on trial for manslaughter, charged with killing a man after a
parking dispute. He pleaded not guilty, blaming the act on
post-traumatic stress disorder -- the psychological residue of
his combat experience in Vietnam.

    The lawyers who argued the Ligon case had another sort of
stress to deal with, arising from the crush of TV cameras that
descended on the courtroom. Local stations covered the trial
extensively. So did a soon-to-be-launched cable channel devoted
entirely to judicial proceedings. A CBS crew was there too,
roaming the hallways and offices as well as the courtroom. "The
whole second floor up here was just one gigantic production
room," grouses Bruce Hudock, who prosecuted the case. "I
definitely found it distracting."

    Hudock's view may be tainted by sour grapes: Ligon was
acquitted. But the prosecutor's objections cannot be totally
dismissed. Courtroom trials have become TV's hottest
reality-programming trend. Forty-four states currently allow
cameras in the courtroom, with varying degrees of restrictions
(New York's law has just expired, as legislators argue over
proposed revisions to it). And starting next month, TV will for
the first time be allowed into some federal courts, on an
experimental basis, for civil trials.

    Real-life trial footage regularly turns up on local
newscasts, on magazine shows like A Current Affair and Trial
Watch, and occasionally as live drama on CNN. The legal
bombardment is about to grow even heavier. On June 21, CBS will
introduce Verdict, a prime-time series that will cover a
different trial each week, using a mix of courtroom footage and
interviews with the participants. (The Ligon case will be
featured in one of the episodes.)

    Courtroom activity will go round the clock with the July
1 debut of the Courtroom Television Network, a judicial version
of CNN. The new cable channel (owned largely by Time Warner)
will cover some trials live -- with play-by-play commentary from
legal experts -- and others on tape in nightly wrap-up programs.
The network hopes to premiere with the Los Angeles trial of
four police officers charged in the videotaped beating of
Rodney King.

    For TV viewers bred on Perry Mason melodramatics, this
proliferation of courtroom coverage is a healthy dose of
reality. Steven Brill, chief executive of Court TV, predicts an
educational windfall for people who watch his channel. "They
will understand that the real world of law is not L.A. Law; nor
is it Clint Eastwood catching a criminal and having some slick
lawyer get the criminal off on a technicality." But TV's
invasion of the courtroom raises tough questions as well. While
video coverage may boost the public's understanding of the
judicial process, is it quite so good for people seeking their
constitutionally guaranteed right to a fair trial?

    So far, many of the problems predicted by those who oppose
cameras in the courtroom have not been realized. Even in states
that allow televised trials, judges make the final
determination as to whether TV should be admitted for a
particular case; cameras are usually barred when the victim's
identity needs to be protected, as in the Central Park-jogger
rape trial. Nor, despite the crowd at Ligon's trial, has TV in
general turned the courtroom into the proverbial media circus.
With tight ground rules, cameras and microphones can be kept
relatively unobtrusive.

    From the standpoint of the public's right to know, there
is no good reason why TV journalists should be barred from
trials while print reporters are not. Critics often complain
that TV distorts the legal process by focusing on the most
sensational testimony. But it is hard to argue that this serves
the public any worse than screaming newspaper headlines, or TV
reporters describing events from the courthouse steps. "It is
a sorry state of affairs that today most of us learn about
judicial proceedings from lawyers' sound bites and artists'
sketches," says Vincent Blasi, a law professor at Columbia
University. "Televised proceedings ought to dispel some of the
myth and mystery that shroud our legal system."

    Some attorneys contend that cameras in the courtroom can
have a subtle and damaging effect on the trial itself.
Witnesses may be more reluctant to testify, for example, if they
know they will be seen on the nightly news by their neighbors.
Seth Waxman, a Washington attorney who represented a
white-collar defendant in one televised trial, says that jurors
afterward made it clear that TV had had an impact; one juror
said a witness seemed less credible because she kept nervously
glancing at the camera. Argues Waxman: "Any extraneous factor
that complicates the fact-finding process ought not to be
allowed."

    Among those who think such fears are overstated is Judge
William G. Young, who allowed cameras to cover the barroom rape
trial in New Bedford, Mass., that was the basis of the movie The
Accused. Says Young: "I came away from that convinced that if
you had careful controls, TV did not change the dynamics of the
trial or the fairness of the trial to the litigants."

    As TV coverage of trials becomes more commonplace, the
arguments against it may fade away -- just as the old debate
over TV coverage of House and Senate deliberations has
disappeared now that C-SPAN is a permanent fixture. One of the
lessons of the media age is that the TV juggernaut is hard to
reverse. But it should not be permitted to crush constitutional
rights as it rolls along.