The Conundrum of Cameras in the Courtroom
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Chicago-Kent College of Law Scholarly Commons @ IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law All Faculty Scholarship Faculty Scholarship January 2012 The Conundrum of Cameras in the Courtroom Nancy S. Marder IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/fac_schol Part of the Communications Law Commons, Courts Commons, Internet Law Commons, and the Law and Society Commons Recommended Citation Nancy S. Marder, The Conundrum of Cameras in the Courtroom, 44 Ariz. St. L.J. 1489 (2012). Available at: https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/fac_schol/404 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Scholarly Commons @ IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Commons @ IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. The Conundrum of Cameras in the Courtroom Nancy S. Marder1 Table of Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 2 I. Traditional Arguments of Proponents and Opponents ............................................................... 6 A. Proponents’ Arguments and a Critique .................................................................................. 6 1. Education ............................................................................................................................. 7 2. Accountability ................................................................................................................... 10 3. Unobtrusiveness of Cameras .............................................................................................. 14 4. No Effect on Participants .................................................................................................. 17 B. Opponents’ Arguments and a Critique .................................................................................. 19 1. Effects on Participants ....................................................................................................... 21 2. Dignity of Court Proceedings ............................................................................................ 25 3. Practical Obscurity of Judges ............................................................................................ 28 4. Uneven Coverage--Too Little and Too Much ................................................................... 31 II. Underlying Motivations and Aspirations ............................................................................ 33 A. Media Proponents' Underlying Motivations ........................................................................ 34 1. Running a Business ........................................................................................................... 34 2. Lobbying Congress ............................................................................................................ 34 3. Protecting Access .............................................................................................................. 36 B. Media and Other Proponents' Aspirations ........................................................................... 37 1. Fostering Open Government ............................................................................................. 38 2. Taking a Public-Centered Perspective .............................................................................. 38 3. Distrusting Judges ............................................................................................................. 39 C. Judges' Underlying Motivations ........................................................................................... 40 1. Maintaining Control .......................................................................................................... 40 2. Avoiding the Limelight ..................................................................................................... 41 3. Viewing the Courtroom as a Workplace ........................................................................... 42 D. Judges and Other Opponents' Aspirations ........................................................................... 43 1 Professor of Law, Chicago-Kent College of Law. I thank Justice Stevens for suggesting this topic to me and for giving me the extraordinary opportunity to serve as his law clerk for two years (1990-1992). I also thank the many judges, in this country and abroad, who have informally shared their views with me. I have had the benefit of discussions with my colleagues at Chicago-Kent, and with Keith Bybee, Erwin Chemerinsky, Jeremy Eden, and Judith Resnik. I am also grateful for comments from participants at conferences where I presented this paper, including the Communications Policy and Research Forum at the University of Technology-Sydney, in Sydney, Australia, the Association of Law, Culture & the Humanities Conference at Boalt Hall in Berkeley, California, the Law & Society Annual Meeting in Montreal, Canada, the Research Committee on Sociology of Law Annual Meeting in Milan, Italy, the Midwest Law & Society Retreat at the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison, Wisconsin, and at faculty workshops at the University of Louisville, Louis D. Brandeis School of Law in Louisville, Kentucky, the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law in Kansas City, Missouri, and Syracuse University College of Law in Syracuse, New York. My project was aided enormously by the research assistance of Joshua Grant and the library assistance of Lucy Moss. Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1969115 1. Providing a Fair Trial ........................................................................................................ 43 2. Taking a Participant-Centered Perspective ....................................................................... 45 3. Trusting Judges ................................................................................................................. 47 III. Other Policy Considerations ................................................................................................... 47 A. Unintended Consequences ................................................................................................... 48 B. Lack of Reliable Empirical Studies To Date........................................................................ 50 C. The States' Experiences ........................................................................................................ 51 1. Surveys .............................................................................................................................. 51 2. Outliers .............................................................................................................................. 53 3. Differences Between State and Federal Judges ................................................................. 55 IV. Lessons from Other Contexts ................................................................................................ 57 A. Televised U.S. Supreme Court Nominee Hearings ............................................................. 58 B. Congressional Speeches on C-SPAN .................................................................................... 61 C. Other Countries' Experiences ............................................................................................... 62 V. Moving Incrementally in a More Open Direction ................................................................... 64 A. Considerations ..................................................................................................................... 64 1. The Power of the Image .................................................................................................... 65 2. Control of the Image .......................................................................................................... 66 3. The Medium is Not Neutral .............................................................................................. 67 4. The Proceedings as Public ................................................................................................. 67 B. Where To Begin? ................................................................................................................. 68 1. Taking Incremental Steps .................................................................................................. 68 a. Posting a Transcript ........................................................................................................ 68 b. Posting an Audio Recording .......................................................................................... 69 c. Allowing Cameras in Appellate Arguments .................................................................. 70 2. Developing a Technology Etiquette .................................................................................. 71 3. Awaiting a Generational Shift ........................................................................................... 72 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 73 INTRODUCTION In spite of a communications revolution that has given the public access to new media in new places, the revolution