Sotomayor Should Push for Cameras in the Courtroom
She'll get her say. She should push to open up the courts
Michael Breyer is chairman & president of Courtroom Connect, which provides litigation support connectivity to the legal industry, and Joel Hyatt is CEO and co-founder, with former Vice President Al Gore, of Current Media and is a lecturer at Stanford Law School.
In other jurisdictions, judges have allowed proceeding to be "narrowcast" only to those directly involved in the litigation (similar to the frequent practice of law clerks listening to an audio-cast in the judge's chambers). There is no observable difference in the conduct of these types of trials whether the audience is limited or the matter is broadcast more broadly to the public. Irrespective, our findings are conclusive that both "narrowcasts" and "broadcasts" improve the efficiency of lawyers and reduce the costs of trial.
As Justice Brandeis writes "Sunshine is the best disinfectant": Transparency is a hallmark of ethical and open government. President Obama promised to have the most transparent government of all time. What does his Supreme Court nominee think about this question? Will she allow federal courts to experiment?
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Reader Comments
The sooner we stop watching
Judge Judy, Matlock & Perry Mason re-runs, circuses like the O.J. coverage, and anything about criminal trials on Court TV or anywhere else,
and INSTEAD
start watching gavel to gavel coverage of The Supreme Court,
the better off we all shall be.
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