One of the most important and consequential trials in American history is now under way in New York City. A former president is on trial for making payments to a porn star to keep quiet about an alleged affair and then falsifying business records to cover it up. The general pubic will not be allowed to see any of it. It will be followed by three more even more important trails. The general public will be allowed to see the one in Georgia state court where Donald Trump is being tried for trying to overturn election results including a threatening phone call to the state’s Secretary of State. Federal courts do not allow cameras. So we will not see the case in Florida federal court where Trump is accused of stuffing secret government documents all over his estate in Florida, including piling them up in a bathroom. And finally, the most serious case of all in WashingtonDC federal court where Trump is accused of trying to over turn to 2020 election results that led to the attack on the Capitol on January 6th.
This has never happened before. The fact that we will not able to see three of the four trials is ridiculous and is a damaging mark on the American justice system. Forty-eight states allow cameras in court for trial courts and appeals courts. The two exceptions are New York and Louisiana. Two states you would never think would have anything in common. The New York ban goes back to the 1935 arraignment in the Bronx of Bruno Richard Hauptmann for trying to extort money from Charles Lindbergh after Lindbergh’s baby was kidnapped in New Jersey. The ban was put place after the flashbulbs and bulky film cameras were too much of a distraction. No more cameras. New York did experiment with cameras in 1987 and 1997 but it didn’t stick.
I was part of a team of journalists who help start Court TV in 1991. We covered live trials all over the country both criminal and civil. We used news anchors who were also lawyers and guest lawyers who help viewers through the legal issues in the cases. We covered some of the biggest trials during the early and mid-nineties, the police officers accused of beating Rodney King, the Menendez brothers accused of murdering their parents, the trial of William Kennedy Smith accused of rape, Jeffery Dahmer’s sentencing hearing, a parole hearing for Charles Manson and, of course, the OJ Simpson trial. There were no big bulky TV cameras. A small remote camera was placed in the ceiling above the jury box and existing microphones were used. We never showed the jurors. We covered hundreds of trials that gave viewers a first hand look at how the justice system worked or didn’t in big and small cases. We never had a complaint from any judge or lawyer. No one was playing to the camera. Everyone knew the seriousness of what was happening in that courtroom.
Maybe most shocking of all is that cameras are not allowed in the United States Supreme Court. This is where the most important issues of our time are decided by nine justices who don’t answer to anyone. In recent years, the court has allowed audio recording to be released after the fact. That’s not good enough. The country was founded on the belief that everyone is entitled to an open and fair trial by a jury of their peers. We shouldn’t be subject to pencil drawings. Justice is supposed to be blind and unbiased. We should be able to see how it works.
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