Give cameras a trial in the courtrooms

There are those in the legal profession who continue to believe that allowing trials to be televised in Illinois would be courting disaster.

Lawyers would play to the cameras, turning dignified courtrooms into Hollywood movie sets. The security and privacy of witnesses and jurors would be jeopardized. Justice would be compromised.

That is a dated view. Not to mention downright inaccurate.

Illinois is behind the times when it comes to permitting broadcasting of jury trials. Many other jurisdictions have let cameras in courtrooms. And justice has been served, not torched by theatrics or compromised by verdicts tainted by video feed.

In testimony before Congress last September, Court TV (now truTV) correspondent Fred Graham noted that the TV channel "has covered more than 900 trials and other judicial proceedings, providing more than 30,000 hours of courtroom coverage." Yet "no judgment in the United States has been reversed because a television camera was in the courtroom". This was reported in a story by the National Press Photographers Association.

In 2001, the New York State Bar Association's Special Committee on Cameras in the Courtroom concluded that there was "no substantial evidence of cameras adversely affecting litigants' rights or the outcome of trials." Other studies, including one by the Federal Judicial Center in 1994, also found that cameras did not disrupt the administration of justice.

In fact, we would think greater public scrutiny of trials, which would occur with cameras in the courtrooms, would actually help to assure that a defendant gets a fair trial.

Illinois should at least follow the lead of other states and televise trials on an experimental basis. (Illinois does permit cameras at the appellate court level). In May, the Nebraska Supreme Court authorized a pilot project in which the media can use cameras to record proceedings in a few courtrooms. Indiana completed a similar initiative last year.

Any competent judge understands the concept of a fair trial. And that should be granted to cameras in the state's trial courtrooms.

We firmly believe that if judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers and the public were given a chance to experience cameras in the courtrooms, they would see they do no harm and indeed will become an accepted part of trial coverage while elevating public awareness of a judicial system that is not exposed to the same level of citizen scrutiny as the legislative and executive branches of government.

Even China has been televising court cases - since 1998 - and earlier this month announced it will expand its coverage to include Internet broadcasts, according to Jurist Legal News & Research.

If a communist nation doesn't fear cameras in court, why should Illinois?