Re: [Leica] Journalistic principles

["Bryan Caldwell" <bcaldwell@softcom.net>]

As the other defense attorney here, I will heartily second Marc's
sentiments. I'm also as strong a defender of the First Amendment as you will
find, but many people forget that defendants in criminal cases also have
Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights that must be balanced against the First
Amendment rights of the press.

I'm currently working in juvenile court where, with a few exceptions, the
press (both print and photo) is not allowed in the court room. I haven't
come across too many people who think they should be.

Bryan


- ----- Original Message -----
From: Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Sunday, November 28, 1999 10:31 AM
Subject: RE: [Leica] Journalistic principles


> At 10:02 AM 11/28/1999 -0800, Eric Welch wrote:
> >Did you not make the comment
> >that you were glad that certain jurisdictions don't allow cameras in the
> >courtroom? I find allowing reporters, and not photographers, to be highly
> >subjective, and in fact hypocritical.
>
> Be that as it may, Eric.  I never said I did not want the press, as a
> totality, in the Court-Room.  You stretched my words beyond their ken.  Or
> are you so intolerantly arrogant that ONLY photographers now rate with you
> as "the press"?
>
> No, I do not want photographers in the court room.  A Leica with Viso,
> perhaps, but none of these horrid Nikons or Canons with that whizes and
> bangs and flashes and bleeps and the loud blaring klaxons which go off,
> "THREE EXPOSURES LEFT!", "TWO EXPOSURES LEFT!", and so forth.
>
> It is HARD to concentrate when you are a trial attorney;  it is even
harder
> to stay focused as a judge.  The distraction of cameras is just plain evil
> and cheats our citizens of their first and fundamental right, that of a
> fair trial, represented by counsel who can concentrate on the case before
> them and not on the fact that some blithering moron has dropped 38 rolls
of
> Fuzzinon Film onto the floor.  Promise me COMPLETE silence and COMPLETE
> lack of flash and COMPLETE lack of, "LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!  I have a
> deadline!" to a bailiff at a security station, as a casual attorney
> acquintance recently encountered somewhere in the mid-west --- might have
> been in St Louis -- and the judge went, "Tut, Tut.  Ten dollar fine for
> making a disturbance.  First Amendment, dontcha know?"
>
> Video camera outside the room is tolerable and unobtrusive.  A quiet
> camera, discretely run, might be acceptable in the Court-Room.  Bozo and
> the Clown and the Clicking Monstrosity is NOT acceptable, and thank
heavens
> I practice where such is not accepted.
>
> (Now, I am a former print journalist, so, yes, I have a bias.)  Our print
> journalists stay and listen, don't say anything.  After the trial, they
ask
> a couple of polite questions, understand "I have no comment" (in every
> jurisdiction in the US, it is Bad Form, if not unethical, for an attorney
> to comment on a trial in progress.  Tell that to the photogenic of the
> lot!) and don't call you at four in the morning.  (I was at a seminar
three
> or four years back;  one of the fellows had practiced in the American west
> somewhere, I forget where -- Yreka or whatever it is California, or
> Portland, Oregon, or somesuch.  At any event, a photo-journalist CALLED
him
> at 2 AM at home and demanded he appear immediately for a photo-interview!)
>
> Horror stories go on.  Keep the cameras out of the Court-Room.
>
> As to Grisham, I have heard he has been a trial attorney.  Wow!  Glad I
> don't practice in his jurisdiction, if that is the case!  His experience
is
> nothing, remotely, like mine.
>
> Suaviter in modo, bro!
>
> Marc
>
> msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
> Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!
>