Courtesy of WikiCommons
It is Wednesday, which is the day we let our Legal correspondent out of his cage to scrounge for morcels of meaty news ( as well as the occaisional pepperoni pizza)..
This week, our legal eagle spotted something with his camera… it’s a story about allowing video cameras in the courtroom. ( No… we are not talking about the Judge Judy TV show…).
Cameras are on everybody’s mind after the Supreme Court said “cut” to a the You Tubing of a high profile Prop 8 trial going on in San Fransisco. We’ve got the rundown…
First….Goin’ on in San Fransisco is the highly anticipated (if your legal nerds like us) federal challenge to California Proposition 8
You can follow up to the minute developments on the trial via the L.A. Now/ L.A. Times Blog Here!
More on the actual trial here, from the NYTimes.
But this shindig wasn’t exactly run of the mill. You see, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has been experimenting with video coverage in courtrooms. Check it out in this L.A. Times article from about a year ago.
Federal courts in California and eight other Western states will allow video camera coverage of civil proceedings in an experiment aimed at increasing public understanding of the work of the courts
And so, the high profile trial was to be streamed on a delay via youtube. But Marcia Coyle at the BLT tells us that drama ensued…
The Supreme Court today ordered the federal judge hearing the Proposition 8 trial to confine the real time streaming of the trial to rooms within the confines of the courthouse.
And the BLT wasn’t the only ones to pick up on the Veto to Videos. Emily Bazelon at Slate magazine raises an eyebrow…
But it can’t be a good development for a nice little West Coast experiment with cameras in federal courtrooms…And since we do know that the Supreme Court justices don’t want their own proceedings televised, it’s hard not to think this is personal.
A polite but no less pointed controversy has broken out over control of televised broadcasts of proceedings in federal civil courts, as part of the dispute over public viewing of the San Francisco trial on California’s ban on same-sex marriage.
The order came from Justice Anthony Kennedy, says Dan Levine at Law.com:
Justice Anthony Kennedy stayed Walker’s order to post video of the trial online. Kennedy indicated that the full court may rule by Wednesday afternoon.
For the actual order, head on over to the Empty Wheel, here.
So what do YOU think? Cameras: Innocent or Guilty?
