Judicial Panel to Urge Opening Federal Courts to TV

A panel of five judges next month will recommend an end, at least temporarily, to the longtime ban on television, radio and photographic coverage of federal court proceedings.

David Sellers, a spokesman for the U.S. Judicial Conference, said Thursday that the policy-making body would receive such a recommendation, involving only civil proceedings, when it meets in Washington on Sept. 12.

“What the five-judge committee will recommend is a three-year experiment,” Sellers said. “The conference could accept, amend, reject or merely table the recommendation.”

The experiment, if approved, would be limited to two federal appeals courts and six federal trial courts. The committee, headed by U.S. District Judge Robert Peckham of San Francisco, is not recommending which courts be selected for the experiment.

Civil--but not criminal--proceedings could be open to TV cameras and other coverage now barred by federal court rules, Sellers said.

Judges would have broad discretion to bar such coverage in any particular case, he said.

Sellers said the committee’s recommendation would entail no government expense. “Any expense would be borne by the news media,” he said.

Peckham’s committee is recommending that the experiment begin in July, 1991.

The Judicial Conference is composed of 27 federal judges and is headed by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. The conference has been asked repeatedly in recent years by news media representatives to open federal courts to TV, radio and photographic coverage.

Peckham’s committee told the conference last year that it lacked sufficient information to make any recommendation for changing the longtime ban.

Most state courts allow some type of electronic or photographic coverage of civil and criminal proceedings.