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Monday, August 13, 2007
Ind. Courts - Indiana trial court cameras shuttered
Jeff Parrott reports today in a lengthy story the South Bend Tribune that begins:
An experimental pilot project to allow news media cameras in Indiana courtrooms has largely been a bust.Check here for three ILB entries from from May 9 and 10, 2006, announcing the project in Indiana.The main obstacle has been a requirement that both parties in a case agree to allow the cameras. Overwhelmingly, defense attorneys in both civil and criminal cases are declining, judges say.
Only South Dakota and Indiana still prohibit cameras in trial courts.
Beginning July 1, 2006, eight courts across Indiana, including St. Joseph Circuit Court, agreed to participate in a pilot project in which video and still cameras could capture images in the courtroom while a trial is being conducted. After an 18-month trial, the Indiana Broadcasters Association and Hoosier State Press Association, groups that have long pushed Indiana to end its courtroom camera ban, would commission a study to evaluate the effect cameras had on the legal process.
But as of last month, only six cases had been taped or photographed statewide. As a result, there probably won't be enough data to study, said Steve Key, HSPA legal counsel.
"It hasn't gone overly well," Key said.
Key said the Supreme Court insisted on obtaining the consent of both parties because they feared failing to do so could open the door to appeals from the losing side. But states that have allowed courtroom cameras for years have not seen more appeals, Key said.
About 99 percent of the cases St. Joseph Circuit Judge Michael Gotsch handles are civil, such as personal injury, medical malpractice, divorce and contract disputes. The only criminal cases he hears involve felony child support delinquency and welfare fraud.
"I've offered it to people for trials but there have been no takers," Gotsch said, noting he seeks both parties' consent at pretrial conferences in all cases. "I might get one side interested, but I have never gotten both sides to agree."
He's heard objections from plaintiffs and defendants, but more have come from defendants, he said.
Gotsch thinks everyone anticipated it would be difficult to gain consent from both parties in a case, but the Indiana Supreme Court wasn't comfortable doing more yet.
"They wanted to see what would work with the consent of the parties before trying something else," Gotsch said.
Because so few cases had been taped, the media groups in January asked the state Supreme Court to, for the remainder of the project, give judges sole discretion on whether to allow cameras -- as at least 20 states now do. But the court denied the request.
The pilot project barely cleared the high court in the first place, winning approval by a 3-2 margin. Justice Brent E. Dickson, joined by Justice Robert D. Rucker, wrote a scathing nine-page dissent in which he encouraged the eight judges participating in the project to reconsider.
"If television coverage can safely be done in our trial courtrooms," Dickson wrote, "without harm to the effective ascertainment of truth, the reliability and fairness of trials, the quest for justice, and the provision of correct information to the public, such safety should be first conclusively demonstrated by a thorough and reliable scientific study in jurisdictions in which trial court television is presently permitted, without putting Indiana citizens at risk."
But the HSPA and IBA lack the resources to scientifically study how courtroom cameras have worked elsewhere, the HSPA's Key told The Tribune. It seems much more practical and relevant to analyze their use in Indiana courts, he said.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 13, 2007 02:57 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts