Ito to Rule on TV Use in Courtroom

Angry at some media conduct, Judge Lance A. Ito on Monday scheduled a hearing on whether to yank a television camera from his courtroom once testimony begins in the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial.

If Ito pulls the plug Nov. 7 on a Court TV pool camera, the action will destroy elaborate plans for live coverage of one of the most highly publicized murder trials in history. The possibility of such an action brought strong reaction from ABC, CBS, NBC and some local stations.

Some representatives of the broadcast media said their attorneys would be filing legal documents with Ito to dissuade him from terminating live coverage.

If Ito orders Court TV to remove its equipment from the courtroom, as he apparently has the discretion to do, it would eliminate the all-court network’s plan for gavel-to-gavel coverage.

All other television news organizations would have instant access to the Court TV film under the current court-approved plan. The networks have planned a combination of live courtroom testimony, regular updates and evening wrap-ups.

“I don’t know how the trial would be covered” if Ito bans the camera, said Carolyn Fox, executive director of the Radio and Television News Assn., a group that is coordinating broadcast coverage of the trial.

Lane Venardos, vice president of hard news and special events for CBS, said the public’s desire for news about the case would not be satisfied without live TV coverage.

“If there are no pictures, then the whole trial becomes much more routine--it’s just another court case,” he said. “There would be no live reports, no specials at night. . . . The coverage would be much more routine.”

Said David Bohrman, NBC’s executive producer of special events: “This may seem like a natural way to somehow compensate for some of the bad reporting, but the camera in the courtroom is not the problem. It will be far better if we have access.”

Fox said broadcast organizations already have sunk $1 million into “Camp O.J.,” an electronic village of equipment-filled trailers and towering platforms in a rented parking lot across the street from the Criminal Courts Building. Stations and networks have plunked down $7,000 each for space in a courthouse pressroom that was specially built for the Simpson trial, she said.

Steven Brill, president of Court TV, said he thinks Ito can be persuaded not to pull the camera. But, Brill said, “If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen.”

Some industry insiders speculated that the networks, local stations and advertisers might actually be pleased if Ito pulls the plug. They said some advertisers do not want their commercials to air during the trial and will be delighted if live TV coverage is banned. And the networks would not have to lose millions of dollars from the cancellation of soap operas.

The gavel-to-gavel broadcast of the Simpson preliminary hearing by ABC, CBS and NBC cost the networks an estimated $1 million each in lost advertising revenue and alienated many soap opera fans. But the networks’ daytime ratings significantly increased.

Besty Frank, senior vice president of New York-based Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising, said, “I’m sure there are advertisers who don’t want to be a part of this.”

Ito first threatened to schedule the hearing on the camera ban last month after Los Angeles station KNBC Channel 4 twice aired what it later acknowledged were false reports about the testing of blood found on socks at Simpson’s home.

But when the judge failed to set a date for the hearing on the day he said he would, many journalists covering the trial thought the matter had blown over.

Notice that the controversy was still alive arrived Monday in the form of a one-page document from Ito to media attorneys and Brill.

“The court proposes to terminate film and electronic coverage,” the notice reads, then cites the KNBC gaffe and incidents last week in which, contrary to court rules, some television stations aired film showing the faces of jurors in cases other than Simpson’s.

In retaliation for that, Ito ordered removal of a camera set up outside his courtroom. He also stopped still photographers from taking pictures in the corridor.

In an interview Monday, Ito acknowledged that the incidents involving the filming of jurors heightened his concern about TV coverage, but he added that he always intended to resolve the matter of the courtroom camera.

“People kept saying, ‘When are you going to do it?’ so I thought it was time,” he said.

The judge set the hearing date more than a month from now, he said, because there is no reason to hold it immediately.

“We’re in jury selection, and there’s no point in doing it now,” Ito said, noting that cameras are banned from the courtroom anyway during the jury selection proceedings, which are expected to last through October.

“Besides, I have 304 (jury) questionnaires to read,” the judge added, referring to the 79 pages of questions each of the 304 prospective jurors filled out last week. Media coverage of the Simpson case has troubled authorities from the day the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson, the football great’s ex-wife, and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman were found outside her condominium in Brentwood.

Simpson’s lawyers have blamed the Los Angeles Police Department for selectively releasing information--some of it inaccurate--to taint potential jurors.

Late Monday, the defense filed a motion under seal asking for a hearing to determine the “source and purpose” of leaks to the media. Ito agreed to consider that motion Wednesday, when a hearing on other issues is scheduled. The motion, according to sources, asks Ito to probe police and members of the prosecution team to determine if any are responsible for certain news reports.

Simpson has pleaded not guilty to the murders, but the news coverage of the case, both print and broadcast, has been awash in speculation about his involvement. There have been reports based on news leaks--many of them false--about evidence connecting him to the crimes.

Ito is allowed to bar cameras from his courtroom if their presence threatens the dignity and orderly proceedings of the court or Simpson’s right to a fair trial.

Along with Brill and others, Royal Oakes, a lawyer who represents the Radio and Television News Assn., has argued to Ito that banning the in-court camera is an improper remedy for the matters that concern the judge.

“It is not the live coverage of the many pretrial hearings that is alleged to have interfered with the rights of the parties,” Oakes wrote in a letter he sent to Ito after the KNBC incidents. Instead, the letter said, “it is a phenomenon totally unrelated to the presence of cameras in the courtroom, namely, alleged leaks of falsehoods.”

Without the in-court camera, there would be more incentive for reporters to seek information from other, perhaps unreliable sources, the letter argues.

Oakes said Monday that Ito, if he bans the camera, will also be denying appropriate access to the trial since seating in the courtroom for the press and public is limited.

In another development Monday, Nicole Brown Simpson’s will and any documents related to it were sealed at the request of her father.

Papers filed by Louis H. Brown, however, disclose that his daughter was worth an estimated $700,000 when she died.

Some of her assets are intended to go to relatives, the paper said, and the remainder into a trust for her two young children. The will was dated May 4, five weeks before she was killed.