Simpson Trial Makes Cameras in Courtroom a Hot Topic

When Daniel Andre Green goes on trial in Lumberton next month for the murder of Michael Jordan’s father, there will be no cameras in the courtroom.

Presiding judge Gregory Weeks, who allowed cameras during the pre-trial hearings, gave no indication until October that he would not permit camera coverage of the trial as well. Indeed, early on he issued four pages of “Media Access Rules” that included detailed instructions for the placement and operation of still and television cameras and the pooling of camera coverage. Court TV was considering gavel-to-gavel coverage.

Then came the O. J. Simpson trial. Thanks to television, more people saw it than any judicial proceeding in history, and many of them — including, apparently, many judges — didn’t like what they saw.

The Simpson verdict was announced on October 3. On October 12, without either the defense or prosecution having requested it, Judge Weeks announced that he had decided to prohibit camera coverage of the Green trial. Mere coincidence? I doubt it.

To be fair, I also doubt that Judge Weeks spent much time watching the Simpson trial (he’s too busy, for one thing), and he hasn’t said whether the Simpson case influenced his apparent change of heart, but the timing of his decision suggests some connection. Moreover, judges in several other high-profile criminal trials — including the Susan Smith murder case in South Carolina and the Texas trial for the murder of Tejano singer Selena — have cited the Simpson case in banning cameras from their courtrooms.

In any event, after Judge Weeks’ surprise announcement the NCPA and the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters filed a joint motion asking him to reconsider, and he agreed to hear us on October 30. Because the NCAB’s lawyers were not available (one was out of town, another in the hospital), it fell to me to make the argument. I made two main points:

— The Simpson trial was a circus not because the camera was present, but because Judge Ito too readily accepted the role of ringmaster. As a lawyer, I too was appalled by many aspects of the Simpson trial, but it wasn’t the camera that allowed the hyperbolic opening and closing statements to go on for days. It wasn’t the camera that permitted the lawyers for both sides to question witnesses interminably, or that allowed repetitious, redundant and irrelevant questions. The camera didn’t permit the lawyers to engage in petty, unprofessional bickering and histrionics of a kind that would never be tolerated in North Carolina. The camera didn’t interrupt the proceedings for innumerable sidebar conferences. The camera didn’t keep the jurors sequestered for 266 days at a cost of $3 million. In short, the camera didn’t lose control of the case; it merely stared, unblinking, at the sorry scene that unfolded in front of it.

— The best antidote for the excesses of the Simpson case is to allow more camera coverage, not less. The Simpson trial is an aberration; it does not reflect the criminal justice system any more than Princess Di typifies the English housewife. Unfortunately, it is also the most-watched criminal trial in history, which means that many people will base their impressions of the criminal justice system solely on it. One way to correct those misimpressions, and to bolster public confidence in the judicial system, is to provide camera coverage of cases in which judges maintain control, the lawyers behave like professionals rather than prima donnas or spoiled children, witnesses are interrogated efficiently, and the proceedings are conducted with solemnity and decorum — in other words, the typical capital murder trial in North Carolina. If we turn the cameras off, we deny the public the opportunity to put the Simpson trial in context.

Judge Weeks listened courteously, asked the district attorney and defense counsel how they felt about cameras (both said it made no difference to them one way or the other), and said he would think it over. When he convened court on November 13 to begin the jury selection, he announced that he had decided to stick to his earlier ruling: no cameras.

Under Rule 15 of the General Rules of Practice, which governs the deployment of cameras in North Carolina courts, Judge Weeks’ ruling is the last word on the issue for this case, because each presiding judge is given absolute authority to terminate coverage in his or her discretion.

Some NCPA members may be inclined to say, “So what? Prohibiting cameras hurts television a lot more than it hurts us. Why should we care?”

Those are fair questions. Here’s why I think we should care:

Rule 15 designates the NCPA as an “official representative of the news media.” When the Supreme Court of North Carolina first permitted cameras in courtrooms in 1982, it designated the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters, the Radio and Television News Directors Association of the Carolinas and the NCPA “official representatives” of the news media so that judges would not have to “negotiate” with an array of individual newspapers and broadcast stations about camera coverage. The NCPA was drafted reluctantly for this role, in which we must represent not only our own members, but any other print media representatives who want to cover a trial (The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times, The New York Times, Time and Sports Illustrated have all shown up in the James Jordan murder case). In other words, we must care because, like it or not, the NCPA effectively is a party to every case that a newspaper or magazine wants to photograph.

As go television cameras, so go still cameras. Rule 15 clearly allows judges to permit still cameras while prohibiting television cameras (or vice versa). Experience teaches, however, that if television cameras are barred, our still cameras probably will be kept out, too. Since we’re all in the same boat, we all should help row it.

Newspaper reporters sometimes rely on camera coverage for access. Modern courtrooms often have limited seating for the press and public; of the more than 1,200 journalists who covered the O. J. Simpson trial, only 27 were actually in the courtroom. The rest watched the trial on television.

Cameras are part of the larger issue of openness in courts. In the long run, the real reason that we should care about cameras in the courtroom is that we should care about everything that goes on in courtrooms. Judges who have enough confidence in themselves and the public to permit cameras are less likely to trespass on our First Amendment rights by closing courtrooms, promulgating gag orders or sealing court documents. Fighting for cameras is just one way of fighting for openness.

I suspect that Judge Weeks’ decision to bar cameras from the James Jordan murder case is the harbinger of a trend, and that camera coverage in North Carolina and elsewhere will be severely curtailed until the memory of the Simpson case begins to ebb. If so, that’s unfortunate, because the people of North Carolina deserve the opportunity to see for themselves that our judges generally treat their courtrooms as sanctuaries, not big tops.