Let the Light Shine In on Federal Trials : Judiciary: Paranoia thrives in darkness; cameras in the courts can help people understand the sometimes inexplicable.

Cynicism about almost everything, including our legal system, seems to be in vogue these days, and that’s why I applaud when I see common sense prevail. The Tennessee Supreme Court has adopted a one-year rule permitting cameras and recorders in all state courtrooms unless the presiding judge rules otherwise. Two video cameras will be permitted in courts, as well as two still cameras and one recording device for radio. Jurors and minors will not be photographed. At the end of the year, the state’s high court justices will review the results and decide whether the practice should be made permanent.

Cameras already are permitted in the courts of 48 states. But given the pillorying that cameras in the courts received in the wake of the O.J. Simpson trial, it’s refreshing to see the Tennessee Supreme Court affirm some basic democratic tenets, particularly public access to trials.

As the Simpson trial demonstrated, courtroom cameras won’t always show the people what they want to see. Cameras won’t necessarily ensure fairness or satisfactory conclusions. Cameras allow us to witness the commonplace failures, as well as the triumphs, of our legal system. If changes in the administration of justice are needed, cameras are likely to hasten such reforms. I reach this conclusion thinking of at least two major trials--and many other less public events--in which the presence of cameras would have been most welcome. First, there was another “trial of the century,” nearly 80 years ago, involving the conviction and subsequent lynching of Leo Frank. Frank, a Jewish manager of a pencil factory in Atlanta, was accused of murdering a young girl. Angry anti-Semitic mobs disrupted the trial. Some demagogic attorneys and politicians made a national stage show out of this legal event--that time in print--and Frank was convicted and sentenced to hang. But doubts about the evidence persuaded Georgia’s governor to commute Frank’s sentence from death to life in prison. Spurred by inflammatory newspaper coverage, a mob of outraged citizens lynched Frank.

Second is the 1962 contempt trial of Gov. Ross Barnett, who refused to obey federal court orders to admit black students to the University of Mississippi. As a member of the Court of Appeals weighing his conviction, I recall how the riots and emotions outside the courtroom were far removed from the difficult constitutional debate taking place among the judges responsible for the case. President Kennedy, in a dramatic television address to the nation, mentioned by name the individual judges involved in these historic events. He described us as heroes; in fact, we sons of the South who were judges merely did our duty to apply the law.

Cameras in the court could have helped the cause of justice in both cases. The mob that lynched Frank did not see the evidence presented in his behalf or hear the testimony of dubious prosecution witnesses. And I have often wondered whether actual television coverage of the deliberations on Barnett would have created more understanding and less passion.

That’s why I applaud the action of the Tennessee Supreme Court and urge the federal judiciary to consider a reasoned use of cameras. Paranoia and fear thrive in darkness; they are dissipated by light. Cameras can help our citizens understand the sometimes inexplicable. The upcoming trial in the bombing of the federal office building in Oklahoma City is a case in point. Rather than permit extremist groups to spread rumors about the proceedings, a camera could show the public that justice is being served.

I am always reluctant to take any decisions away from trial judges, but lifting the federal courts’ ban on cameras, within reasonable limits, to allow proper balance between fairness and accessibility is a worthy cause.

Some federal cases may be inappropriate for television. In each federal circuit, a panel of judges could establish ground rules and decide whether a trial should be televised. There will not be a great deal of television interest in the average trial, so the work of the panel should not be heavy.

The public has a right to see how justice is carried out in our nation. Such public scrutiny will help reform our legal system, dispel myth and rumors that spread as a result of ignorance and strengthen the ties between citizens and their government.