A new era of leadership for the U.S. Supreme Court should mean that cameras finally come to that hallowed courtroom. Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has called for cameras for a decade. But under Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the court resisted them on the grounds that they would alter the proceedings and tone and somehow violate justices’ privacy. Nonsense. But even if Roberts accepts cameras, it would be over the objections of justices including Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer and David Souter. “The day you see a camera come into our courtroom, it’s going to roll over my dead body,” Souter said in 1996. But the opposition of a justice who doesn’t even own a computer shouldn’t rule the day in 2005.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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28 Comments
In our courts, the remarks of the judge and attorneys involved are supposed to be directed to the jury, not the cameras. The object is justice, not ratings! Televising proceedings will send the courts down the road to the same kind of show trials we deplore in third-world dictatorships.
I agree with Rhonda on this one. It is our right to see what goes on in that court. Ratings would have nothing to do with it if it were on C-Span.
It is your right to know what happens in court not to watch it on tv.
By the way, It does not matter whether a justice owns a computer, as long as they can READ the constitution!
Keep the cameras out (and take them out of trial courtrooms as well). Imagine how much smooth the BTK case would have gone if Nola didn’t have cameras to play to.
Generally, I’m for more gov’t openness. Who did Cheney meet with when he formulated his “energy policy,” for instance? We have a right to know–the man works for us.
But I’m leery of cameras in the courtroom after the OJ Simpson trial. TV “reporters” (heh) turned that into a circus.
Cameras change the dynamic of the situation. How many people have you seen on “EliminiDate” do wholly inappropriate things like strip naked in a bar? Things they would never do if a TV camera weren’t on them . . .
Letting print reporters in is good enough for me–save the cameras for “Survivor.”
Besides if cameras are in a courtroom and is televised on C-span there is really no reason for the media to ever speak about it….because the story was told!
But as we know, the opposite is true. Instead the media gets themselves whipped into a frenzy sensationalizing every detail. interviewing every victim…. every distant relative of a neighbor who once lived by the defendant 20yrs ago….See, cameras don’t do anything but polute the story. The role of the reporter is to record events and report them to people who were not there to witness them…This is done quite well by the written record of the court and reporter…..It is not well served by 10second media soundbites…keep the cameras out.
Well I think cameras are good because we can see if these people are good looking or not and that’s important.
I mean Bush is ugly, so you see what I mean?
The have audio recordings of the entire proceeding, only after the event though.
I think it is a bad idea to have cameras in the court room. Too distracting. This is not a question of jury by your peers, they are settling legal questions and it is public. Just doesn’t have to be televised!
Your right Rhonda, the people have a right to see what happens.
When will the Eagle be placing cameras in their workplace so we can see what you guys really talk about all day?
If Gore were president, there wouldn’t have even been a hurricane.
Hey Nathan, or whatever,I used to work in their newsroom, and I hate to disappoint you, but what they talk about is the same crap everybody talks about in any office. As far as there being some conspiracy or other, impossible! I watched reporters use their whole lunchtime arguing about where to go for lunch! You couldn’t get that bunch to agree on anything! And while the reporters may tend to be slightly liberal, the editors are as crusty a pack of right-wingers as you could find anywhere. Ain’t no liberal bias there, and they’re who decides what’s printed. Sorry, the truth’s never as good as the imagination.
Agreed, Jed. Just look at the editorial page–Cal FREAKING Thomas for Cripe’s sake, Kathleen Parker (idiot), some douchebag from the Waco Yellow Press, and anything that comes across the transom from Karl Peterjohn or the Flint Hills Public Policy Institute (a CATO Institute wanna be).
I finally stopped my subscription because I refuse to subsidize every right-wing columnist in the country.
Galahad hates right wingers. That is why I’m getting. Am I wrong?
I don’t want to support people who hate America and everything it stands for, so if you call that “hating” then I guess the answer is yes.
Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Barry Goldwater
Jed,
When did I say anything about a liberal bias?
I simply said I want cameras in the Eagle.
Stop reading into things.
Sorry,I was also responding to one of your other so-called personalities.As far a cameras in the newsroom, isn’t there enough boring crap on the tube as it is?
Galahad,As much as I have admired Goldwater in his later years, extremism in anything is a vice. My vice is plinking idiots, which is a really fun vice, but a vice all the same.
Yeah, Nathan has gotta be Hank. That’s exactly what Hank does, he all but says something, and when you call him on it, he backs away and says you’re at fault.
Hank the other day was making fun of Black dialect, and I call him on it, and he says, “you’re the rascist one because you thought I was imitating black speech.”
Oh, brother . . .
Ah, Sir Galahad, you insufferable white, liberal, bigoted racist! You pick on me in a BLOG I’m not even participating in! How devoid is your life that you have to pick on some poor old crippled up veteran?
Then, you don’t even quote me correctly! Shame!
Just so people will know what you are referring to, here is my entire response to yo the other day:
Ah Galahad,
You race-baiting-liberal nitwit! You just assumed I was making fun of ‘African-Americans’. To make such an assumption makes you the racist, not me.
I have ex-inlaws in Pascagoula, MS and Mobile, AL. They all talk worse than I imitated in my post. And they are white. (If they survived that is, my ex-mother-in-law never left when Camille hit and we haven’t heard from her since Katrina.) As far as the poor Blacks in NO, you can’t understand most of what they say. I wouldn’t even know how to imitate them.
As far as Amos and Andy goes, I do miss the days when Negros had a sense of humor. (I don’t remember the democrats ever having one).
Sincerely,
Hank
Yaz,zir, Misto Hank.
I ain’t making fun o’ nobody’s ways o’ talkin’, I surely aints.
(Scratches his wooly head and scuffs his work boots)
ole man ribber . . . dat ole man ribber . . .
Yaz, sir, boss, dis heah ain’t no makin’ fun of nobodies . . .
Hank, or whatever,”You pick on me in a BLOG I’m not even participating in! How devoid is your life that you have to pick on some poor old crippled up veteran?”Sorry, it’s hard to keep up on which alias you’re using on any particular blog. Actually, we were picking on your young, stupid, faux-marine personna, and got the old crippled up veteran one by mistake. We’ll try harder to keep all of you straight!
The apple doesn’t seem to fall far from the tree, does it?
Dear Sir Galahad,
I’m wondering if you are making fun of my relatives in Alabama or the average democrat voter in New Orleans.
Either one will see you for the self-rightous bigot that you are, but my in-laws will beat you up and leave you for dead, you might survive. The NO democrats will kill and eat you.
Hank
Maybe Nathan and Hank are just a conglomeration of old used up body parts from different people. They left out the brain.
I give you….
…….”FRANKENHANK!”
BWHAAAAAAAAA!!!
LOL, Vlad–
“Fire, bad!”
Cue lightning, crashing thunder . . .
“No, Igor! Not the conservative brain! You’re forcing me to make a MONSTER!”
Abby-Normal!
BWhaaaaaa!
The amazing thing is that Hankathan is STILL active on many blogs. You’d think he she it they would crawlback under a rock and re-organize. Til then they are to me and I suspect many others……..irrellevant clowns.