Constitutional Law

Pa. high court may open doors to video cameras

By By The Associated Press

HARRISBURG, Pa. ? Pennsylvania's highest court may soon allow cameras into its courtrooms to record its proceedings.

Though details must be hashed out before the Supreme Court votes on whether to lift its long-standing ban on cameras, a decision expected sometime in 2011, Chief Justice Ronald Castille said Dec. 14 that limited video coverage would help educate citizens about what the court does and demystify the state's judiciary.

"It kind of puts a face on the whole system," Castille told the Associated Press in a telephone interview from his Philadelphia office. "Those that are interested [could] see the actual workings of the highest court in the state."

As part of a test first reported by the Legal Intelligencer, the Pennsylvania Cable Network was recently permitted to record arguments before the court in Harrisburg using three remote-controlled video cameras. The video isn't being aired, but DVDs are being distributed among the justices as they consider a prospective new policy.

The justices will discuss the topic again early next year and decide whether they want to conduct a follow-up test during a March argument session in the court's Philadelphia courtroom, the chief justice said.

Castille said the test revealed that lighting in the Harrisburg courtroom was inadequate for video recording, but the small robotic cameras ? two trained on the justices and one focused on the rostrum where lawyers address the court ? were so unobtrusive that, by the second day, some justices were unaware that the session was being recorded.

Cameras remain banned from county trial courts, but the intermediate statewide appellate courts ? the Superior and Commonwealth courts ? have permitted cameras to cover certain non-jury civil proceedings for years.

PCN, which routinely covers events in the executive and legislative branches of government, has pressed the Supreme Court to allow similar video coverage of its six annual public-argument sessions in Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh.

Those sessions generally feature lawyers expressing conflicting viewpoints on matters of law that the court must decide ? dry material for modern video programming but a critical element in shaping Pennsylvania's laws.

"Anything that can help inform people about what the courts do is a good thing," said Lynn Marks, executive director of the Philadelphia-based judicial reform advocacy group Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts.

The chief justice said he envisions allowing PCN or another public company to cover the sessions and share the video ? possibly for live broadcast ? with other organizations on a pooled basis.

"We don't want the courtroom filled up with cameras," he said, citing the possibility of a particularly sensational case heightening news media interest.

Full post as published by First Amendment Center on December 17, 2010 (boomark / email).