I’m  not a fan  of  cameras in the courtroom.  Never had been.  I fought (successfully) cameras when Court TV wanted to televise one of my trials.  Sure, it could have opened up a whole new career for me as TV game show host, but I passed.  It’s that thing about my client coming first that kept clouding my eyes.

But Doc Berman reports that a bill just made it through the Senate Judiciary Committee called the  Sunshine in the Courtroom Act that would allow TV coverage of all federal courts.  Doug is all for it.

Readers will not be surprised to learn that I think it is especially important to see what happens in district courts at sentencings.  Indeed, I think all law professors should lobby hard in favor of this Act in order to have a terrific corpus of teaching materials in the form of courtroom video.  I might even be able to develop a sentencing-only version of YouTube.

You might think that I’m about to tell you why I think Doug is wrong on this, but I’m not.  In fact, I think this is the first substantive argument I’ve heard as to why proceedings should be visually recorded. 

No, not for the purposes of being on TV, or because “sunshine is the best disinfectant,” or because the public should be able to see what really happens to educate them on legal matters.  Those rationalizations don’t hold up to scrutiny, and are all subterfuges for lawyers who want to be TV stars and TV producers who want free content to broadcast so they can sell commercial time.

It’s not the generic act of videotaping proceedings that creates the problem, unless the cameras are overly intrusive or the proceedings turn into football games with TV timeouts.  It’s the collateral influence that has an unnecessary potential to deny a defendant of a fair trial, willing witnesses and a judge willing to make legally correct but socially unpopular decisions.

But then comes my next question:  Is it similarly okay if the recordings are made exclusively for teaching/educational purposes, and not for television fodder?  If so, I think we’re on to something here.

Doug presents a legitimate interest in what transpires in the courtroom.  Being able to use real life as a teaching tool would be a huge advantage to students.  And I can’t blame the lawprofs for lobbying for a means to make their teaching better.  In fact, I applaud the fact that teaching enters into their thoughts at all, given how much they think of themselves as scholars and how little as teachers.  This is enlightened self-interest, one of the great motivators.

Granted, teaching students to be lawyers must be subsidiary to assuring due process.  If not, it’s the tail wagging the dog, since the only purpose of teaching law students is to prepare them to be lawyers, the folks who serve to try the cases that will be recorded for the benefit of law students.  Impair the trials and there will be no need for law students.  But I don’t see that happening as a result of recording proceedings for educational purposes.  It’s an entirely different dynamic in the courtroom, and one that won’t present a significant threat of problems.

Clearly, this compromise won’t satisfy the TV producers, the home-bound trial fan or the show-boat lawyers who will sacrifice their clients for their moment in the sun.  But that’s life.