2 Supervisors Would Seek TV Ban in a 2nd Simpson Trial

Contending that television coverage is dragging out the O.J. Simpson trial and making it more costly, two Los Angeles County supervisors Tuesday said they will ask that cameras be barred from a second trial, should one occur.

As the “alternate jurors have dwindled in numbers” and a mistrial “looks more and more likely,” Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said he is preparing a motion to put the board on record requesting that the court prohibit broadcast of any retrial.

Yaroslavsky said he believes the “single biggest factor in the length of the trial” is televising the proceedings, and argued that the nature of the case is responsible for “generating incredible costs” of $700,000 to $800,00 a month for the county.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who has long expressed concerns about the trial’s cost, said he would co-author the motion.

Antonovich said that California’s policy of permitting television coverage of court cases is coming under increasing criticism from prominent attorneys and cited comments made by Simpson defense attorneys as well as prosecutors.

“With the Simpson case having cost the county $4,986,000 through April 30, I am confident this motion will pass unanimously,” Antonovich said.

The motion is scheduled for consideration at Tuesday’s board meeting.

With the county facing a possible $1-billion budget deficit next year, the spiraling costs of the Simpson case has become a key issue with supervisors, who have attempted, so far unsuccessfully, to find ways to make the media pay a portion of the costs.

The supervisors have singled out the sequestering of the jury as an action that was likely driven, in part, by the gavel-to-gavel television coverage of the trial.

However, Presiding Superior Court Judge Gary Klausner this year denied a request from the board to charge the media for costs associated with broadcasting the trial.

“There is no specific indication that would lead to the conclusion that the sequestration is a result of cameras in the court,” he said.

In a separate letter to Antonovich, trial Judge Lance A. Ito supported Klausner’s assessment.

“The impetus to sequester the jury in this case was the overall news media frenzy outside of the courtroom in general and the computer-generated ‘photograph’ of a beaten Nicole Brown Simpson on the cover of the National Enquirer in particular,” he wrote.

Attorney Kelli L. Sager, who has represented several media organizations at the Simpson trial, said she was disappointed by the two supervisors’ latest intentions.

“It certainly concerns me that they would consider taking an action like this,” she said. “It is so far afield to blame cameras in the courtroom for the length or the cost or anything else associated with the trial. There’s just no correlation.”

Sager said that the issue of televising the Simpson trial has become a scapegoat for a wide range of frustrations associated with the trial.

“It’s an easy target,” she said. “People blame cameras in the courtroom for everything bad with the criminal justice system.”

Times staff writer Jeffrey L. Rabin contributed to this story.