Pros and Cons - Debbie Newman, Ben Woolgar 2014

Televised trials
Section G. Crime and punishment

In some countries, especially the USA, criminal trials are commonly televised, and can be both broadcast live in full, or shown in highlight form. In other countries, especially the UK, there has generally been a strong ban on such coverage, although in 2004 it was briefly experimented with. This debate is about criminal trials; civil cases are rarely dramatic enough, or of enough public interest, for anyone to care about broadcasting them (although the UK Supreme Court does live-stream its hearings on the Internet, without many viewers!). Perhaps the most famous example is the 1995 trial of former American footballer O.J. Simpson for the murder of his ex-wife and a male friend, but other high-profile cases, such as singer Michael Jackson’s sexual abuse trial, have also been broadcast.

Pros

[1] The judicial process is currently mysterious and threatening to most ordinary people. If they find themselves in court, they will be baffled and intimidated by the strange language and procedures. The televising of trials and other judicial proceedings will demystify the legal process and serve to educate the public about the judicial process. Only real court proceedings can truly perform this educative function — TV and film portrayals are over-dramatised, glamorised and unrealistic. Nobody will watch a public information film, but people will watch a real trial.

[2] Currently, judicial proceedings are only accessible to the public at large via news reports in the media, which are partial and potentially biased. The television camera does not lie. Allowing TV cameras in courts will provide full, accurate and honest coverage of exactly what happens in any given case. Whatever media spin or reportage is laid over the TV coverage, the proceedings will be in full view of the public, which at the moment they are not.

[3] It is democratic to allow cameras in courts. The scrutiny made widely possible by television coverage of court proceedings will create healthy criticism of the process and personnel of the judicial system, and will make them answerable. Unfair laws, prejudicial practices and incompetent lawyers and judges will be exposed to a wide public.

[4] If trials are televised, a huge audience is made aware of the case and the evidence, and crucial witnesses may come forward who would otherwise have been ignorant of the case and their potential role in it. Televising trials will thus increase the chance of a fair trial.

Cons

[1] Mock trials in films and soap operas are often realistic and give everybody a very good idea of what happens in a courtroom. Increasingly great attention is paid to detail in historical and popular films, and the picture of the judicial system portrayed is reliable and accurate. If this is not considered enough, public information films of mock trials or reconstructions of famous past trials can be shown — television coverage of actual trials is not necessary.

[2] There are already full and accurate records of court proceedings available to anyone who is interested in them. Legal reports in reputable newspapers are reliable and objective. Anyone truly interested in the judicial system can also sit in the public gallery of most courts. The TV media will in fact invariably create a much more distorted picture of a trial — as in the famous case of the O. J. Simpson trial which became a ’media zoo’. Most people will not have the time or inclination to sit and watch every minute of the process of a trial, but will rely on 30- second ’sound bites’ in the evening news with the biased spin of the TV journalists presenting the case. Cameras in courts will increase media distortion of trials.

[3] Injustices in the judicial system and incompetence of judges and lawyers are already fully reported in the press and broadcast media. There is no need to see actual pictures of scenes in a courtroom to believe these news stories or to act upon them. Judges have been forced to resign for widely publicised incompetence in Britain, despite the lack of television cameras in courts. There are also many groups campaigning for fairer legal status; for instance, for homosexual rights, despite the lack of televised judicial proceedings. Unfairness and incompetence will be reported on and campaigned against with or without cameras in courts.

[4] Far from creating fairer trials, TV coverage will create more miscarriages of justice. Jurors will inevitably be swayed by high-profile TV reporting of cases and people will come forward as witnesses not because they have crucial evidence, but because they want to become TV stars. American TV talk shows demonstrate what people are prepared to do and say to get on television — the same cannot be said about getting into the legal pages of a national newspaper. Also, in countries such as the USA where judges are elected, the televising of trials will lead to judges performing to the electorate by, for example, imposing harsher sentences than they otherwise might.

Possible motions

This House would put cameras in the courtroom.

This House believes that justice should be blind.

Related topics

Community sentencing

Judges, election of

Privacy of public figures