JACKSON - District Attorney Frank Carlton of Greenville remembers trying a case several years ago where a spectator came in wearing a wrist camera.
"He was taking pictures during the trial and got caught," said Carlton, who is retiring after 24 years as a prosecutor. "The judge raised all kind of hell, put him in jail for contempt.
"I was intrigued by the fact you could have a little camera like that. I thought that was pretty neat … Dick Tracy kind of stuff."
With the Mississippi Supreme Court inching toward lifting a ban on television cameras and newspaper photographers in the state's trial courts, such extremes as in Carlton's story would be unnecessary.
As recently as 1995, the Supreme Court upheld the ban on cameras in the courtroom. That ruling came in a case brought by news organizations seeking to cover the trial of Byron De La Beckwith, the man who murdered civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963.
In the unanimous decision, the justices said because reporters are not banned from trials, no First Amendment rights were violated.
The court had upheld a ruling by then-Hinds County Circuit Judge James E. Graves Jr. that Supreme Court rules barred the cameras.
"But I offered that I was of the opinion they ought to be allowed in the courtroom," Graves, now a member of the Supreme Court, said in a recent interview. "It just seems fundamentally unfair to me that the print media are allowed and just because someone else happens to be electronic media then you don't allow them."
Reporters from newspapers and television stations are allowed to take notes in courtrooms, but cameras are not allowed from either medium.
Graves was chairman of a panel of journalists and judges that studied cameras in the courtroom for the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court Rules Committee is now taking public comment on the proposal.
Thirty-six states allow cameras in civil and criminal proceedings in trial and appellate courts, according to the Washington-based National Center for State Courts. One other state allows cameras for criminal cases only.
The Mississippi Supreme Court in April 2001 began broadcasting oral arguments over the Internet. The viewer must have a web browser, audio/video player; and an Internet connection.
The state Court of Appeals joined in August 2001. Unlike the Supreme Court system, no connection is available to allow broadcast media to capture the video and audio recorded inside the Appeals Court courtroom.
The new proposed rules would allow television stations and newspapers to have cameras in the courtrooms subject to a number of guidelines suggested by the rules committee. The proposed rules give the trial judge a voice in allowing cameras.
"It was important to the rules committee to leave discretion to the trial judge," Graves said. "One of the things I wanted to do is make it clear that cameras shall be allowed and that reasonable efforts should be made to accommodate the media.
"We don't want a situation where a judge thinks that 'Well, I don't like it, I don't think they should be allowed and so I don't have to do it.' The rules don't allow for that kind of discretion."
Graves said trial judges would weigh the downside of the presence of cameras in terms of impeding litigation or how they may influence or affect the litigants' right to a fair trial.
"So the judge can weigh those two interests, which are sometimes competing interests, and make a determination whether or not cameras ought to be allowed," Graves said.
Harrison County Circuit Judge Stephen Simpson, a former prosecutor, said the public should see what goes on in courtrooms.
"Philosophically, I think anything that exposes the judiciary system to the public and gives them more insight and understanding of what we do day in, day out is a good thing," Simpson said.
Simpson said cameras would also dispel the notion that every case is handled like the O.J. Simpson trial.
"That is not typical of any case I have been involved in, even the high profile ones," the judge said.
Carlton agrees.
"You're not going to get any TV drama kind of stuff," he said. "It is a roller coaster thing. There are high moments, no question. But a lot of it is a slow pull to that high point."
Carlton said once the newness of having cameras in the courtroom wears off, nothing much will change in the courtroom.
Charlie Mitchell, managing editor of The Vicksburg Post and president of the Mississippi Press Association, said the MPA endorses the progress being made toward cameras in the courtroom.
Mitchell said content restrictions in the proposed rules are a concern.
"Anything a citizen could see in a courtroom, a camera should be able see. Anything a citizen should be able to hear, a microphone should be able to record and relate to the public," Mitchell said.
Graves said the only court proceedings categorically excluded are family and juvenile matters.
"Frankly, I didn't agree with that exclusion," he said.
Mitchell said there is no reason for exclusions.
"If these are items going on in open court, then any camera should be able to record them the same as a citizen sitting in a seat," he said.
"A lot of people don't realize you can go to the public files right now and read people's wills, go read somebody's divorce case, you can sit in the court and hear the testimony as a passer-by."
Mitchell said divorces and custody legal issues may be a little more sensational than the normal civil court hearing.
"But we believe the court errs if it gets into content-based restrictions that are not already part of law," he said.
Dick Rizzo, director of news and public affairs at Mississippi Educational Television who was member of Graves' committee, said there should be only one exception - any and all matters involving children.
He said broadcasters shouldn't be required to get a court order to cover divorces and family issues as the rules propose. He said such orders are not required of the print media.
"Broadcast journalists should be free and unfettered to decide which family matter cases are worthy of news coverage," Rizzo said.
Jackson attorney Leonard Van Slyke Jr., who specializes in media law, said in written comments to the rules committee that that any exception to allowing cameras in the courtroom "should be limited to a well-documented overriding interest."
Van Slyke said a hearing would determine the reasons for barring cameras and "why no reasonable alternative is available that will adequately protect the interest sought to be advanced without limiting or terminating camera coverage."
Graves said whatever comes from the public comment period, he agrees that knowledge of the court system will improve.
"I think the more people know about the system, the more they are likely to be supportive of it, the better the understanding they will have of it," he said.
On the Net:
Mississippi Supreme Court: http://www.mssc.state.ms.us
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