Cameras in the Courts
The Limits of Access: U.S. v. Hastings Accordingly, the federal court system began to struggle with the same issues that had troubled the states with regard to cameras in the courtroom. In U.S. v. Hastings,97 the defendant, a former federal district court judge accused of taking a bribe,98 “moved the trial court to permit his trial to be televised, The superseding rule was that primarily relying on his Sixth Amendment the First Amendment right of right to a public trial.”99 Numerous news organizations then moved to intervene in access may only be overcome by support of the defendant’s motion, citing a narrowly tailored, compelling First Amendment rights and questioning the governmental interest. constitutional validity of Rule 53.100 After the trial court denied both motions, an expedited appeal was sought and granted.101 The federal appeals court’s opinion in this appeal came close on the heels of Supreme Court’s decision in Chandler, and is a study in microcosm of all the arguments and counterarguments regarding cameras in the courtroom. The court began with the proposition that the bar on cameras in federal courtrooms was “a ‘time, place, and manner’ regulation,”102 which under Supreme Court precedent “is constitutional if it is reasonable, [] if it promotes ‘significant governmental interests,’ [] and if the restriction does not ‘unwarrantedly abridge . . . the opportunities for the communication of thought.[]’”103 The crux of this restriction is one of “reasonableness” of the regulation,104 balanced against whether the rule is “necessary to further significant governmental interests.”105 The 11th Circuit applied this analysis in Hastings. “We can foresee no additional measure of confidence which might emanate merely from the different manner of media access, e.g., excerpts of live witnesses on the television screen, as opposed to an artist’s sketch,” the court declared in affirming the district court’s denial of the media’s request.106 “[W]e find that the media access sought here would advance First Amendment concerns only to a minimal degree, if at all.”107 The 11th Circuit noted that the Supreme Court had used this rationale to reject a Sixth Amendment challenge to Rule 53, concluding that the requirement that all criminal trials shall be public is “satisfied by the opportunity of members of the public and the press to attend the trial and to report what they have observed.”108 And while the media once again argued “that the ban on use of audiovisual equipment arbitrarily discriminates against 97. 695 F.2d 1278 (11th Cir. 1983). 98. Id. at 1280 n.6 99. Id. at 1279. 100. Id. at 1280. 101. Id. 102. Id. at 1282. 103. Id. (footnotes omitted) (quoting Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U.S. 50, 63 n.18 (1976); and Richmond Newspapers, Inc., 448 U.S. at 581 n.18). 104. Richmond Newspapers, 448 U.S. at 574. 105. Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U.S. 50, 63 n.18 (1976). 106. Hastings, supra, 695 F.2d at 1283. See also U. S. v. CBS, Inc., 497 F.2d 102, 106 (5th Cir.1974) (vacating order barring courtroom sketching and broadcast of sketches of subject trial, wherever created). 107. Id. 108. Id. at 1284 (citing Nixon v. Warner Communications, Inc., 435 U.S.589, 610 (1978)). Reynolds Courts & Media Law Journal
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