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Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Ind. Courts - Indiana's cameras-in-the-courtroom pilot project
"Media cameras going to court" is the headline to this story by Bryan Corbin in today's Evansville Courier& Press. Some quotes:
A Vanderburgh County courtroom will make history when it becomes one of the first trial courts in Indiana to allow news media cameras inside to record trials and hearings.Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard is scheduled to announce today that Vanderburgh Superior Court will be among 10 courts statewide to participate in the cameras-in-the-courtroom pilot project.
While other states allow video and still photography in their trial courts, Indiana does not; longstanding Indiana trial rules forbid it. Shepard, an Evansville native, gradually has relaxed that rule in recent years. In 1997, cameras were first allowed inside hearings of the Indiana Supreme Court and Indiana Court of Appeals. Starting in 2001, both courts offered live Webcasts of their hearings.
But as recently as March, the Indiana Supreme Court turned down a request from the CBS news program "48 Hours" to videotape David Camm's sentencing after his murder trial in Warrick Superior Court 2.
Prohibiting photography in trial courts has been rooted in the concern that it might deprive defendants of fair trials, that it would be distracting for jurors and that attorneys might grandstand for the cameras.
But Vanderburgh Superior Court Judge Wayne Trockman, who will preside over the local pilot project, said he was not concerned. "I have a lot of faith in our (local attorneys) that that's not going to occur, and they're going to be professional and not play to the camera; they're going to play to the jury as they're required to do."
When Shepard approached him some time ago about leading one of the pilot projects, Trockman answered that it can be done in a nondisruptive fashion, he said.
The proposed order states the camera cannot show the faces of jurors or of witnesses who are minors, for example, Trockman said. * * *
The pilot project is separate from an effort under way to install closed-circuit cameras in Vanderburgh County Misdemeanor Court, so inmates can be arraigned remotely by video without having to leave the county jail. * * *
Shepard is to announce the news-camera pilot project this afternoon in Vanderburgh Superior Court, where he once presided as a county judge before being appointed to the Indiana Supreme Court in 1985.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 9, 2006 06:25 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts