Eyeing the Supreme Court’s Challenge indicate that “empirical evidence from the states [is] ... positive,” citing a study by the Federal Judicial Center.77 However, as discussed infra, there are actually few empirical studies on the issues raised by cameras in courtrooms, and validation of the studies that do exist is almost entirely absent.
The Missing Research
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ne would have thought that, in the 46 years since the Supreme Court’s decision in Estes, substantial and sustained empirical research would have been undertaken to meet the Supreme Court’s challenge and to enhance our knowledge and understanding of television courtroom broadcasting. But while the Supreme Court has suggested that social science and empirical research be undertaken as part of addressing the research gaps on the effects of broadcasting of court proceedings, the empirical research challenge has not been fully taken up by social science researchers, the media, or the courts themselves. The first reported television courtroom broadcast of a trial occurred in 1953.78 Since then, there appears to have been twenty-four scientific, methodical, and empirical studies of television courtroom broadcasting effects issues.79 But most of the studies are non-sci 77. Id. at 1113. For information on the Federal Judicial Center study, see infra, p. 290. 78. Gilbert Geis, A Lively Public Issue: Canon 35 in the Light of Recent Events, 43 A.B.A. J. 419, 420 (May 1957). This first television trial broadcast—on a delayed basis, not live—was the murder trial of Billy Eugene Manley in Oklahoma City. The first live broadcast was a 1955 murder trial in Waco, Tex. Id. Of course, before such television broadcasts, there were examples of court proceedings being filmed and played in movie theatres. But most, if not all, of the effects literature is addressed to television, as opposed to the movie theater coverage. Yet, many of the same in-court distraction issues may apply to movie filming as well. Possibly this issue is not addressed in the general literature as the movie broadcasts gave way when television courtroom broadcasts became more popular. 79. Chronologically, this methodical and empirical research is the following: James L. Hoyt, Courtroom Coverage: The Effects of Being Televised, 21 J. Broadcasting 487 (1977); Donald Lewis Shores, Jr., The Effects of Courtroom Cameras on Verbal Behaviour: An Analysis of Simulated Trial Witness Testimony in Courtrooms Using Television Cameras (1981) (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida), available at http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00098276/00001; Ernest H. Short & Assocs., Evaluation of California’s Experiment with Extended Media Coverage of Courts, Submitted to Administrative Office for the Courts; the Chief Justice’s Special Committee on the Courts and the Media, and the California Judicial Council (1981); Steve Robert Pasternack, The Effects of Perceived Community Pressure on Simulated Juror Guilt Attributions: A Study (1982) (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Tennessee, Knoxville); Saul M. Kassin, TV Cameras, Public Self-Consciousness, and Mock Juror Performance, 20 J. Experimental Psych. 336 (1983/84); Anna R. Paddon, Television Coverage of Criminal Trials with Cameras and Microphones: A Laboratory Experiment of Audience Effects (1985) (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Tennessee, Knoxville); Eugene Borgida, Kenneth G. DeBono & Lee A. Buckman, Cameras in the Courtroom: The Effects of Media Coverage on Witness Testimony and Juror Perceptions, 14 L. & Human Behavior 489 (1990); Alan Punches, The Cognitive Effects of Camera Presence on the Recall of Testimony in a Simulated Courtroom Setting (1991) (Ph.D. dissertation, Colorado State University, Fort Collins); Federal Judicial Center, Coverage of Federal Civil Proceedings: An Evaluation of the Pilot Program in Six District Courts and Two Courts of Appeals (1994), available at http://www.fjc.gov/public/pdf.nsf/lookup/elecmediacov.pdf/$file/elecmediacov.pdf; N.Y. State Comm. to Review Audio-Visual Coverage of Court Proceedings, An Open Courtroom: Cameras in New York Courts (1997); Kermit Lyol Netterburg, Cameras in the Courtroom: Is A Picture Worth a Thousand Words? (1980) (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota); Allen Bukoff, The Effects of Video Camera Techniques on the Pre-deliberation Judgements and Perceptions of Roleplaying Jurors (1984) (Ph.D. dissertation Kent State University); S.L. Alexander, “Mischievous Potentialities”: A Case Study of Courtroom Camera Guidelines, Eighth Judicial Circuit, Florida (1989) (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida), available at www.archive.org/stream/mischievouspoten00alex; William Petkanas, Cameras on Trial: An Assessment of the Educational Effects of News Cameras in Reynolds Courts & Media Law Journal
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