THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : Photographer Banished From Courthouse Isn’t the Only One to Suffer

For a journalist, getting kicked out of the O.J. Simpson courtroom is bad enough, but what about being banned from the entire courthouse?

That’s what has happened to Life magazine photographer Roger Sandler. His banishment from the Criminal Courts Building is so complete, in fact, that he was not even permitted to attend a hearing on his ouster last month.

If Sandler isn’t permitted in the building, he can’t go to his own hearing, reasoned Superior Court Judge John H. Reid, who conducted the session.

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Sandler is a veteran photographer whose assignments have included presidential campaigns, the Olympics, big trials, the fall of Saigon, and events in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and the old Soviet Union.

I talked to him Tuesday afternoon in the small Westside house he rents north of Sunset Boulevard. He looked at ease with his casual clothes and tousled brown hair. But he’s a tiger when he’s shooting pictures and is considered overly aggressive by some of his competitors.

I don’t know about that. He reminded me of the kind of photographers I like to work with on a tough story, the ones who shoot first and ask questions afterward.

Sandler has been on the Simpson story from the earliest days. On the night of Simpson’s freeway flight, Sandler was working on a story about the Los Angeles Police Department’s SWAT team. When SWAT was called to Simpson’s mansion, Sandler tagged along. He was inside the house, firing away with his camera, when Simpson came home. No other photographer was there.

Sandler’s banishment from the Criminal Courts Building dates back to March 3, when he was in the ninth-floor hallway outside Judge Lance A. Ito’s courtroom. He was carrying a bag with his cameras in it. He said he saw another photographer focus a camera on Rosa Lopez, March’s celebrity witness, as she was seated on a bench. He pulled out a camera and focused on Lopez.

But before Sandler shot, he said, another photographer stopped him. He pointed out to Sandler that Judge Ito had banned cameras from the floor, except for those belonging to camera men and women assigned to the courtroom. Sandler put his camera back in the bag without ever taking the picture.

A few days later, another photographer reported Sandler’s action to Jerrianne Hayslett, the court press officer. Hayslett, in a deposition filed with the court, said the other photographer had seen Sandler trying to “surreptitiously” shoot Lopez. “I advised Judge Ito of this,” Hayslett said. Ito, she said, decided Sandler would no longer be permitted to participate as a pool photographer in the courtroom.

Sandler denied taking any pictures. In a letter to Ito, he apologized and said he had not known of the no-camera rule for the ninth-floor corridor.

“Judge Ito gave copies of these letters to me,” Hayslett said in a deposition, “but did not change his order barring Mr. Sandler from the courtroom.” Ito, she said, turned the matter over to the supervising judge of the criminal courts, James A. Bascue.

If journalists think Judge Ito is rough on them, they ought to deal with Judge Bascue. He, like Ito, is a former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney appointed to the bench by former Gov. George Deukmejian.

Bascue wondered how Sandler had gotten onto the ninth floor with his cameras despite the ban. Hayslett investigated and reported that sheriff’s deputies said Sandler had told them he was part of the photographers’ pool. Pool members are the only photogs permitted to carry cameras on the floor. After hearing the report from Hayslett, Bascue barred Sandler from the courthouse on March 21.

Sandler’s attorney, Kelli Sager, said Hayslett’s report to Bascue was dead wrong. “This allegation is nonsensical,” she said in a court paper. “Mr. Sandler appeared at the end of the court session, so he clearly was not the pool photographer that day and did not represent himself to the sheriff’s deputies as such.”

Sager demanded a hearing for Sandler and got one. Unfortunately for Sandler, it was before another Deukmejian appointee and former L.A. County deputy D.A., John H. Reid.

The D.A. alumni stick together. Sager opened the session with Reid by asking for a hearing, presumably at a future date so she could prepare. “The court will allow such a hearing,” Reid said. Sager thanked the judge and asked when it would be scheduled. “Right now,” Reid replied.

“Is Mr. Sandler permitted to attend, Your Honor?” Sager asked. “He has by order of this court been forbidden to come into the courtroom,” Reid replied. “Until that order changes that will be the order.”

Sager said that Sandler should be there since this was a hearing on his rights.

“What rights?” asked Judge Reid.

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Sandler has asked the 2nd District Court of Appeal to lift the ban. Attorney Sager told the court that her client has been deprived of due process and been given an excessive punishment.

She also raised a point with the appellate court that is important to everybody, including those whose only contact with journalism is reading the newspaper or hearing and seeing broadcast news. “It is important,” she said, “that constitutional safeguards be applied--safeguards which are designed to protect against the arbitrary exercise of authority against someone who is unpopular or disfavored by the controlling authority.”

That’s what the Sandler case is all about. If Judges Bascue and Reid, acting on behalf of Judge Ito, can ban Roger Sandler from the courthouse for a minor infraction, then they can banish anyone--snoopy reporters, judicial critics, irate citizens and contributors to the judges’ opponents in reelection campaigns.