More Judges Expected to Ban Cameras in Court

Armed with a revised rule that gives them near total discretion to ban cameras from their courtrooms, many more California trial judges probably will prohibit live television coverage in the near future, according to jurists, lawyers and media representatives who participated in a conference at USC on Saturday.

Many judges will take a negative view of live television coverage “until the negative shadow of the Simpson case” abates, said San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Morris.

Of the 19 factors that judges are to consider when deciding whether to allow live coverage, Morris said only two tilt in favor of live coverage. Those are the importance of maintaining public trust in the judicial system and the importance of promoting public access to the judicial system.

On the other hand, Morris said, numerous other factors appeared to work against live coverage. They include the parties’ support or opposition to a media request for live coverage; the privacy rights of all participants, including witnesses, jurors and victims; the potential effect on the ability to select a fair and unbiased jury; potential effect on ongoing law enforcement activity in the case; potential effect on any subsequent proceedings in the case; potential effect of coverage on willingness of witnesses to cooperate, and potential difficulty of jury selection for a second trial in the event of a hung jury.

What became clear from many of the judges’ remarks at the conference, called “The Media and the Courts: Searching for Balance,” was that the electronic media would have a much more difficult time persuading judges to permit live coverage.

Even though many of the participants acknowledged that the O.J. Simpson case was an aberration in virtually all respects, they said it clearly had had a profound impact.

Bill Callahan, a reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune, expressed concern about the fact that a Superior Court judge recently barred a still photographer from a case there, giving as his reason: “The O.J. case . . . I didn’t like it.”

“There’s going to be a healing time,” said Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Lawrence G. Antolini.

He and several other judges said that denials of live coverage have increased since the Simpson case, though there are no statewide statistics.

On Friday, a Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge barred live coverage of a wrongful termination lawsuit against pop star Michael Jackson. The judge noted that he is not obliged under the Constitution to permit television coverage as part of the public’s right of access to court proceedings.

On Saturday, veteran Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Paul Boland, who is president of the California Judges Assn., said hostility toward live coverage has definitely increased in the aftermath of the Simpson case, though he said he thought the hostility might be greater in Southern California than in Northern California.

Live coverage has been permitted in California courts since 1980. The state Judicial Council decided to revisit its rules governing live coverage after Gov. Pete Wilson and a healthy percentage of the state’s judges called for a ban on live television coverage in California courtrooms in the wake of the Simpson trial.

Though the council rejected a ban, the new rule forbids the broadcast or photography of jury selection, sidebar conferences, spectators or whispering at counsel tables. It also makes it easier to bar coverage of preliminary hearings or debates over the admission of evidence held outside the presence of a jury.

“If there’s one overriding change, it’s a deliberate, premeditated” effort to give trial judges more discretion in deciding whether or not to allow live coverage, said state appeals court Justice Richard D. Huffman of San Diego, who chaired the Judicial Council task force on what is known as Rule 980.

Huffman said the new rule was “a deliberate effort” to undermine a prior state appeals court decision that upheld a general presumption in favor of allowing live coverage.

He also noted that under the new rule a judge does not have to hold a hearing or to state any reasons when rendering a decision to prohibit live coverage or to terminate it once it has begun. Huffman and other judges said that permitting judges to act without giving an explanation would avoid the possibility of their stating reasons that might make the decisions vulnerable on appeal.

Still, some judges at the conference, including Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charles “Tim” McCoy and Sacramento Superior Court Judge Thomas Cecil said they would state reasons whenever they were asked.

Two leading criminal defense lawyers--Jill Lansing of Los Angeles, who represented Lyle Menendez in his first murder trial, and Frank Bardsley, the San Diego County public defender--expressed support for restricting live coverage. Both said they had had difficulty in getting witnesses to testify because they feared appearing on live television.

Although she applauded the Judicial Council for not banning cameras, Carol Breshears, news assignment manager of KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles, expressed reservations about some of the new restrictions. She also said that since “70% of the country gets its news from television, I don’t think blanket denials [of live coverage] will work.”

She and several other media representatives said that much of the concern generated by the Simpson case stemmed from events that happened outside the courtroom--such as attorney discussions with the media coming in and out of the courthouse--that would not be affected by barring cameras from the courtroom.

Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson, who served as a Simpson case analyst for CBS News and The Times, expressed considerable reservations about “the unbridled discretion” the new rule gives the judges.

In an interview, Huffman said that state court officials would start compiling statistics on how often cameras are denied, as part of an effort to assess how the new rule is working. He expressed confidence that judges would use their discretion wisely.