Robotic Eye to Watch Simpson Trial : Courts: A unique, remote-controlled still camera is installed in the courtroom. It will give newspaper and magazine photographers a closer shot of the action.

Borrowing a little from NASA--and a lot from Nintendo--they rolled out a news-reporting robot Thursday in a Downtown Los Angeles courtroom.

It’s a one-of-a-kind, remote-controlled news camera that will chronicle the J. Simpson murder trial for newspaper and magazine readers throughout the world.

The unusual camera was bolted to the wall of Judge Lance Ito’s ninth-floor courtroom and connected by wires to video game-style joysticks that newspaper photographers will operate from the hallway outside.

The device will get press photographers--known for noisy cameras and loud shirts--out of the of the way of jurors as opening arguments in the trial draw closer.

If the remote-controlled camera works, experts in newsrooms and courtrooms alike say similar robots could start popping up at high-profile trials everywhere.

Remote-controlled television cameras have been used for years for surveillance work in places such as parking lots and Las Vegas casinos. But until now there has never been equipment that could remotely aim and click pictures with a still camera that uses a 36-exposure roll of film.

Local newspaper photographers say they got the idea for their remote camera from television technicians who installed a remotely run video camera near the front of Ito’s courtroom. The still photographers had been given permission only to shoot pictures from the back of the courtroom.

It was Ito himself who suggested a robot camera. He told photographers that he had seen a remote-control photo device, used for wildlife surveillance, mentioned in an outdoors catalogue.

Photographers built a soundproof box from pieces of an underwater camera housing and a used telephoto lens case. They rented the joystick equipment and tiny motors that will move the camera and its auto-focus zoom lens.

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A finger-size video camera stuck to the rear of the boxed camera’s viewfinder shows the operator in the hallway what the camera is aiming at. But the photographer at the joystick has to be judicious when it comes to snapping pictures: After the 36-exposure roll is gone, film cannot be changed until the court goes into recess.

“I shot 30 rolls of film just at the first preliminary hearing alone,” said Richard Mackson, a Sports Illustrated photographer who helped build the device, as he watched Associated Press photographer Reed Saxon operate the joysticks for the first time Thursday.

Calvin Hom, a Times photo editor, said some photographers fear that a robot camera could replace human news photographers.

Michael Nelson, a photographer for Agence France-Presse, agreed, saying, “If it works, they’ll use it for other cases and kick us out. It could lessen our access to the courtroom.” But in the Simpson trial, the robot will give newspaper readers a perspective they would otherwise miss. As long as Ito--and the robot--don’t object.

“If it starts smoking, turn it off right away,” counseled Ron Taniwaki, a Nikon representative who helped install it Thursday.