WASHINGTON (KRT) — The federal judge presiding over the first trial in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will hear arguments today over an old issue with urgent relevance: Should this trial, with the whole world watching, be televised?
Court TV, which has broadcast more than 700 trials in 10 years, is asking U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema to allow TV coverage of the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, charged with conspiring to commit the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The request has the support of Moussaoui’s attorneys.
“Televising the trial will ensure that the entire world is able to watch the proceedings and will add an additional layer of protection to see that these proceedings are fairly conducted,” the attorneys wrote.
It also has reignited a debate over whether cameras affect the behavior of courtroom participants or the outcome.
The arguments will play out in federal court, the last bastion of a ban on TV coverage. In the last 25 years, all states have allowed cameras in some proceedings; 37 states allow broadcasting criminal trials.
“If ever there was a case for allowing TV in a federal trial, this is it, given this attack on U.S. soil,” said Karen Kammer, a Miami attorney who has represented TV stations seeking greater access. “This is the perfect opportunity to re-examine the federal policy.”
But many veterans of federal courts don’t agree.
Gregory Wallance, a former federal prosecutor in private practice in New York, said that TV has “a distorting influence in high-profile, emotionally charged cases.”
“With the stakes in this case, you need the utmost decorum, and with the security concerns, you know jurors and witnesses don’t want their faces shown,” said Wallance.
The Justice Department warned that coverage would make it more difficult to persuade witnesses to testify against Moussaoui.
“A worldwide broadcast might assist (terrorists) in retaliating against witnesses,” wrote federal prosecutors.
Edward Davis, a former chief U.S. district judge in South Florida, has wrestled with the issue for years, and comes down somewhere in the middle.
He believes federal appellate court proceedings, with lawyers arguing directly to judges, should be televised and would “help educate” the public — as live coverage did of the Florida courts’ litigation in the Bush vs. Gore election battle.
“But I’m not real comfortable with televising criminal trials” in federal court, said Davis, now in private practice in Miami.
“I think cameras have an effect on lawyers and judges, even though they often say it doesn’t,” Davis said.
Many critics of televised coverage cite the O.J. Simpson murder trial as a case of the cameras distorting the outcome. But defenders say the Simpson case was an aberration, and that every day viewers learn a lot by seeing their local courts in action.
“In most courtrooms, cameras have become an inconspicuous part of the landscape,” said David Dow, co-author with Marjorie Cohn of “Cameras in the Courtroom,” a study o*f the practice.
“A defendant or witness can try to use it for propaganda, but a judge with a strong hand can handle that,” said Dow, a retired CBS correspondent.
The Judicial Conference, a powerful group of 27 senior federal judges that administers the federal court system, has adamantly resisted cameras. Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the Supreme Court, who heads the conference, has been a leading opponent.
In her Alexandria, Va., courtroom, Judge Brinkema may not be able to allow TV coverage even if she supported it, given the opposition of the conference.
“That policy is not going to change as long as Justice Rehnquist is there,” predicted Davis, who served on a committee of judges that debated the issue in the early 1990s.
In rare cases, federal judges have permitted TV coverage of civil proceedings in their courtrooms, but there is no federal precedent for televising a criminal trial.
Congress did authorize closed-circuit coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing trial for families of the victims. The Senate has done the same for the Moussaoui trial and the House is expected to act soon.
The unprecedented nature of the Sept. 11 attacks prompts advocates of coverage to argue that the entire nation was victimized, and television allows “all Americans to exercise their constitutional right to observe this trial,” as Court TV put it.
Dow said that global TV coverage “would be a great opportunity to show the world how the U.S. justice system works.”