Charles Lindbergh is the reason the U.S. doesn't have cameras in the courtroom

https://slate.com/technology/2020/10/supreme-court-oral-arguments-cameras-lindbergh-baby-trial.html

by prismatic • 6 years ago

104 96 6 years ago

slate.com

pmoriarty• 6 years ago

The only two illegal photos taken inside the US Supreme Court in session, 1932-1937

https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/photos-inside-supreme-court...

LeoPanthera• 6 years ago

This is the old courtroom, right? Which is now open to the public.

jamestimmins• 6 years ago

I'm surprised that there are spectators in the room. I always assumed that Supreme Court sessions only included the judges and lawyers.

dehrmann• 6 years ago

I'd be surprised if something so important weren't open to the public.

All oral arguments are open to the public, but seating is limited and on a first-come, first-seated basis.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/visiting/visitorsguidetooralarg...

bluGill2• 6 years ago

In the constitution you have the right to a public trial. It is an easy argument that your appeal is part of your trial even if you are not there yourself.

SllX8• 6 years ago

Good. C-SPAN cameras turned Congress into a show and I’m not convinced we’re better off for it.

alphabettsy2• 6 years ago

I tend to agree with you. Too often politicians are playing to the cameras hoping for a soundbite rather than engaging in substantive debate.

0823498723498726• 6 years ago

Would conducting legislative business via IRC (or text-only Slack/Discord) be a substantive improvement?

(or would legislators wind up texting A/S/L and deploying filibuster bots?)

C19is20• 6 years ago

I've never voted, never will. Mainly because politicians don't really debate: that being, to convince an opposition to change their minds. I know sometimes politicians have gone against their party's wishes, but I can't see those being as a result of a well constructed idea from the opposition.

jacobwilliamroy5• 6 years ago

I like C-SPAN. It gives us a fairly pure insight into what the government is doing. I can literally keep an eye on them. I see all the stuff the news doesn't report and I also get to see the news before it gets filtered through corporate media.

Plus you are probably the second person I know who thinks C-SPAN is a show. The first person is me. The consensus in America seems to be that C-SPAN is too boring and so many won't watch it.

cameldrv• 6 years ago

It provides pure insight into what happens on the floor. Therefore substantive business does not happen on the floor anymore. The floor is now a stage, and what happens is theater. All real business happens in private meetings and conversations, and those meetings are overwhelmingly segregated by party, hence the increasing polarization, because members from opposing parties rarely have personal relationships anymore.

SllX8• 6 years ago

What you see on camera isn’t a pure anything, it’s just pure obfuscation and deflection. The cameras are rolling and while they’re rolling that’s the time to score points. That’s no way for a deliberative body to do politics.

Der_Einzige2• 6 years ago

People in America complain about how biased our media is. I remind them that until they start watching C-SPAN instead of CNN for American politics that they are part of "the problem"

I love C-SPAN and think that it is a significant public good.

imgabe2• 6 years ago

Newt Gingrich realized that C-SPAN provided him a free 24-hour platform to talk about whatever he wanted on TV. He would go stand in the empty chambers and speak to the TV audience. It helped bring about the widening partisan divide we have today.

tdhoot• 6 years ago

C-SPAN being known for its large audience glued to the TV screen all 24 hours?

andrewflnr• 6 years ago

The idea that cameras "had a corrosive influence on the dignified conduct of American jurisprudence" is a deeply odd one, for all that it seems to be obviously true. What is the mechanism? I suspect it has more to do with how the footage is used outside the courtroom than anything that directly happens inside, but that's only a start of an answer. Is video actually easier to sensationalize than other media?

SllX8• 6 years ago

People behave differently on camera than off. If you know you’re being recorded, this will have an effect on your actions. If you have career ambitions, then anywhere there’s a camera is a chance to move up by using that camera as a platform and the area it is recording as a stage.

I want prosecutors, public defenders, lawyers and judges in our courtrooms. I want Representatives and Senators in Congress. The actors can stay in Hollywood.

andi999• 6 years ago

"The actors can stay in Hollywood." That ship has sailed since Reagan hasnt it.

Barrin92• 6 years ago

any form of public broadcasting turns private deliberation between peers into an event performed in front of an audience, which is to say it has the tendency to turn something into a spectacle. It's why all these congressional hearings with CEOs are absolute clown car events, the hearing only exists for the political audience rather than for actual deliberation.

All media has this effect of turning things into a simulated spectacle but video is likely worse because it's unmediated and real-time.

This tendency of turning everything into a movie, available to consumers at the click of a button permeates American society at this point, from protests[1], to hearings, to the presidents medical status.

[1]https://imgur.com/QzDHOEy

akiselev• 6 years ago

Is video actually easier to sensationalize than other media?

It has nothing to do with video (although the fidelity of recording likely has an impact). It's now know as the Hawthorne effect [1] but even before it was given a name, anthropologists who came to openly study remote tribes often reported markedly different cultural behaviors from more clandestine anthropologists and the locals whose contact with the remote tribes brought them to the attention of academics.

Just knowing that something is being closely observed and even recorded for posterity seems to significantly alter behavior. Basically like a possum playing dead, except with far more complex social interactions.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

thaumasiotes• 6 years ago

It's now known as the Hawthorne effect [1]

The citation doesn't seem to support much of anything:

Descriptions of the well-known and remarkable effect, which was discovered in the context of research conducted at the Hawthorne Western Electric plant, turned out to be fictional.
The original research involved workers who made electrical relays at the Hawthorne Works, a Western Electric plant in Cicero, Illinois. Between 1924 and 1927 the famous lighting study was conducted. Workers experienced a series of lighting changes in which productivity was said to increase with almost any change in the lighting. This turned out not to be true.
Later interpretations such as Landsberger's suggested that the novelty of being research subjects and the increased attention from such could lead to temporary increases in workers' productivity. This interpretation was dubbed "the Hawthorne effect," although the data does not support that view.
Other researchers have attempted to explain the effects with various interpretations. J. G. Adair warned of gross factual inaccuracy in most secondary publications on the Hawthorne effect and that many studies failed to find it.

sjy• 6 years ago

“The single most important fact about television is that people watch it, which is why it is called ‘television.’ And what they watch, and like to watch, are moving pictures—millions of them, of short duration and dynamic variety. It is in the nature of the medium that it must suppress the content of ideas in order to accommodate the requirements of visual interest; that is to say, to accommodate the values of show business.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985)

im3w1l• 6 years ago

Maybe one thing is that people become more afraid of looking stupid. They may not ask for important clarifications.

There was a question here in another thread "if you saw your surgeon reviewing a text book just before he started cutting you up, would you feel more or less safe?". I would feel less safe.

But it's obviously better if those surgeons who don't feel 100% confident do review.

salawat• 6 years ago

Maybe one thing is that people become more afraid of looking stupid. They may not ask for important clarifications.

This 1000 times. I learned extremely early there is great value to be found in being "the strategic dunce" in the room in any Engineering context, and it is the most difficult 'skill' to teach to Junior Quality people.

When you get a bunch of Engineers in a room, you can often follow what they think is going on, and if you only observe and question shallowly, everything appears fine.

Then you play the dunce and ask them to clarify a basic point. Do it once. Do it twice. Do it a third time. Usually by 3 or four, unless planning has gone off without a hitch, you'll uncover some misunderstanding or assumption someone made, but the rest weren't aware of.

It doesn't take much, just a willingness to hold people to make what they think explicit. It can seem like a tiresome practice, but by doing it, you can also short-circuit the pattern by which everybody delegates a complete understanding of the system to 4 or 5 people, and you start to have everyone able to delve into the details of larger and larger swathes of the system, reducing the chances of only discovering fundamental holes in understanding until it's too late.

I find 80% time investment making sure everyone is saying the same thing about the same thing any day; since at that point, the implementation basically lays itself out in front of the mind's eye,and you turn the builders into walking cross-check functions.

tt4333• 6 years ago

I don't remember the author but one historian of Germany (I think) used the phrase the "historicizing gaze of the camera" to describe how shooting footage of an event freezes that singular, imperfect perspective in amber. When that recording is all that survives of the event in the historical record, it becomes the single "true" way that event unfolded. At the time of film's invention, this was very remarkable, although we may take it for granted now. (It cannot be a perfect representation of the event, of course, such a film is impossible unless the event is watching paint dry, and even then the whole wall better fit in the camera's view)

tertiary• 6 years ago

I don't know how I feel about this. I like the idea of complete transparency, but even without being able to capture dramatic photos of courtroom battles the US already has trial by media in some cases. I feel like adding photos and videos to that would throw gasoline onto that fire and turn our judicial system into a reality show. I almost prefer the system in some European countries where they are not even allowed to release the names involved in criminal cases unless they have been found guilty.

0823498723498726• 6 years ago

Compare the defense of Μνησαρέτη: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phryne

bcraven• 6 years ago

Are you saying you'd like cameras in court in case a defendant gets her tits out? I think some more context to your point would be helpful!

laurent922• 6 years ago

In France we have presumption-of-innocence laws, but presuming innocence participates to justice not working: Look at the last people who have been killed during the summer and you’ll notice a worrying trend — they have 10, 20, 47 repeat offenses.

At one point you have to think of the victims too. For 20 repeat offenses recorded, there has been hundreds of beat-ups. I met a guy who said he’s been 200 times (his estimate) in custody between 13 and 18. He had only been condemned once, at 19. He bragged to me about how many French people he bullied, including locking up a fat kid in a basement for 3 weeks. You have to think of the victims.

Again, look at repeat offenses of usual criminals in newspapers, and remind yourself that they have been presumed innocent to the extreme and only condemned for cases which have been extensively proven, where victims dared to talk, knowing he has a condemnation rate of less that 0,5% per arrest.

Stupulous• 6 years ago

Imagine being released from prison and told, "Whether or not you return to crime, if anyone ever accuses you again, we're going to assume you're guilty and send you back." I think you get a lot more victims that way, even before you count the reformed criminals who are now victims of the state.

Criminal history should absolutely factor in to a case, and I believe it does in the US. But it is imperative for society at large that innocent people can expect to go unpunished.

ajnin• 6 years ago

This has nothing to do with presumption of innocence. Presumption of innocence means that you are considered innocent until legally proven guilty in court. It is a very fundamental value of a democratic justice system that guarantees that you can defend yourself of accusations and you are free of the arbitrariness of prosecutors and public opinion. If you undermine that out of an emotional reaction to some event you risk creating much more harm, by sending many innocents in jail and generally instilling distrust in the society, than you will prevent.

Also, what do you propose? If it is not necessary to be declared legally guilty anymore, then what? The color of your skin? The mood of the prosecutor and judge? The number of times you are presented before the court? What if the cops don't like you? What if you are accused without proof and without mean to exonerate yourself?

The cases you describe of people committing 47 offenses (with no conviction you say, so the justice system decided that they were not actually offenses, Yet you are here claiming that they are without any knowledge of the facts) and then going to kill someone are very very rare. You can't have a 100% failure-proof system without complete totalitarian control over everyone in the population. Many of these people are just insane, they're not the organized terrorist group types, and the justice system is not equipped to deal with mental health issues. When it tries you end up with people in psychiatric internment for years and years without trial and with little recourse, which is another tragedy.

runawaybottle3• 6 years ago

Right. Innocent until proven guilty. The public also runs with any and all salacious narratives and court cases can turn accusations into a sentencing in itself via shaming. The old ‘so, I heard you finally stopped beating your wife’ trope where the inference is enough to destroy people, true or not.

We see a lot of this on Reddit. Shaming is a powerful tool, but often should be reserved for punching up (power structures like the government, law enforcement, and large organizations ((not a small business)). Your average person is flawed and trial by public shaming seems cruel and unusual.

Like yeah, I get it, the random person you are filming is a racist but is the punishment the front page of Reddit? What’s your plan when the social climate changes and the stuff you do is now fodder to be recorded? There are some people that will record American women dressed revealing in other countries because, hey, culturally it’s shameful to dress like that. How there isn’t a bunch of public defamation lawsuits for this stuff boggles my mind. I can legally be a piece of shit, that doesn’t mean you get to just record me on one day out of my life and broadcast it on the internet.

Social media is going around banning misinformation. At some point, I want to see a crackdown on online public defamation.

But yeah, back to the point, no - you shouldn’t be able to record one of the worst moments of my life as I fight to clear my name in court.

Teknoman117• 6 years ago

Just look at what it did to congressional inquiries. You just end up with a bunch of misinformed or willfully ignorant senators and representatives asking rarely useful questions of people just so they can be on CSPAN grilling that CEO that the media currently doesn't like. No one cares about solving the issues so long as there's enough footage sent home to the voters to get reelected.

michaelt• 6 years ago

How do you think the senators would act if they knew voters wouldn't see their performance?

tt4333• 6 years ago

Gingrich was a master of playing the CSPAN game

ransom1538• 6 years ago

"I like the idea of complete transparency"

Really? I have an issue with subpoenas. Subpoenas can make public to the court your phone records, your phone images, emails to your ex from 2008, your text messages etc.

You want to have a divorce court publish all your iphone text messages and photos? I think once a subpoena is requested the court must turn private -- at least to protect the innocent.

remarkEon3• 6 years ago

Having cameras in the court room would do 1000x more damage to the legitimacy of SCOTUS in the eyes of the public than seating blatant partisan justices, or even expanding seats. It would manufacture the kind of gross and disgusting meme-able content that we see in all other corners of media today, and it would turn these Judges into celebrity personalities rather than, ostensibly, impartial members of an independent branch of government.

If you want to peek into oral argument, and actually learn something about the High Court, do yourself a favor and check out the incredible work Oyez does. They mash up the audio with the transcript, and sync it with a highlighted avatar for which Justice is speaking at the time. Having cameras in the court would destroy this medium of consumption, and relegate it to manipulated soundbites and distorted political ads. We should all detest any attempt to change the status quo here.

Here's an example from Oyez. An interesting case that has some good back and forth, and highlights how this really is the best way to consume the history of the court. They have the entire record in there, and their website is very well organized, so you can find whatever case you want.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2019/18-1195

reducesuffering• 6 years ago

Incredible resource. I feel like this is what proponents of cameras want, a medium for understanding the thought process and types of debate that goes into SCOTUS decisions. There were many interesting observations. Like how there were still interruptions (thus how hard that must be to do away with in oral debate), how there were no “umms or likes” I observed (makes sense, they would be intelligent speakers), and above all how humanizing the occasional joke and laughter were, for decisions that have serious impact.

jskdvsksnb• 6 years ago

how there were no “umms or likes” I observed (makes sense, they would be intelligent speakers)

Some of the justices get their questions out ... very ... slowly. I don't know if you can necessarily attribute the lack of 'filler words' to some superior intellect. I'm sure the fact they all went to a few ivy league schools also trained them to speak in a particular manner.

remarkEon3• 6 years ago

Oyez is probably a top 5 website out there today. It's beautifully built in its minimalism, and it does an amazing job of mainlining what is an intentionally inaccessible part of the US government to the public. IANAL, but I've listened to and read hundreds of cases from this site, and it's a seriously undervalued resource. Whenever decisions drop in June (aka SCOTUS season), it's one of my favorite summer redoubts - to ignore all the press write-ups about the cases and just go to the source material.

Edit: As a testament to how deep this website goes, they've got audio from the 1960s curated in the same way. Here's a famous case (and very very relevant today) from 1963.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1963/39

WalterBright2• 6 years ago

In a related issue, it is illegal in Washington State for lawmakers to have private negotiations about bills. It's the "open meetings" law. I.e. you cannot discuss a bill with other lawmakers over coffee, over the phone, via email, etc. This law is very well intentioned.

But it seems to have the opposite effect. Legislation can only be discussed in public hearings, and so they just turn into the lawmakers reading prepared grandstanding statements playing to the cameras.

runawaybottle3• 6 years ago

It could be a necessary evil. We already have corruption with stealth kickbacks and special interests siphoning budget from America. How much worse would it be if it was all behind the scenes?

asutekku• 6 years ago

It already is behind the scenes. Do you really think people only discuss about it in public hearings.

0823498723498726• 6 years ago

I sometimes wonder if a rationale for the idea from The Republic of the guardians all sharing a common mess was an attempt to avoid politics via private dining.

Bonus clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOPsAcy5FYk

Wit 'fakeshang' mi showxa mebi walowda o mebi walowda walowda mang, demang xalte wit sif fo du ruchirowna. -- Da Dzhimi, Federalish 10 (1787)

baybal2• 6 years ago

If a man turns into a clown in front of a camera, he would too be a clown in any other way.

It greatly unsightly for a country to have people like these for the apex court justices.

tt4333• 6 years ago

Publicity is a resource that careful politicians spend wisely, according to their needs at the time. These publicized official events give them a platform to grandstand or rebuke the opposition, some of them are bound to use it that way. Meeting one on one doesn't have that possibility of publicity, unless you're really dedicated to playing the clown 24/7.

tzs• 6 years ago

Are you sure about that? It looks like the law explicitly excludes the legislature. RCW 42.30.030 says it applies to "meetings of the governing body of a public agency".

"Public agency" is defined in RCW 42.30.020, which says:

As used in this chapter unless the context indicates otherwise:
(1) "Public agency" means:
(a) Any state board, commission, committee, department, educational institution, or other state agency which is created by or pursuant to statute, other than courts and the legislature;
(b) Any county, city, school district, special purpose district, or other municipal corporation or political subdivision of the state of Washington;
(c) Any subagency of a public agency which is created by or pursuant to statute, ordinance, or other legislative act, including but not limited to planning commissions, library or park boards, commissions, and agencies;
(d) Any policy group whose membership includes representatives of publicly owned utilities formed by or pursuant to the laws of this state when meeting together as or on behalf of participants who have contracted for the output of generating plants being planned or built by an operating agency.

See https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=42.30

zw123456• 6 years ago

Does anyone remember watching the OJ trial on TV live ?

jrace2• 6 years ago

I still wonder what the outcome would have been had it not been televised.

bluGill2• 6 years ago

I wonder what it would have been like if both sides acted like a court case and not like actors in a made for television special.

pseingatl• 6 years ago

Cameras are allowed in Florida state courtrooms. Cameras are prohibited in federal courts.

Strange that the article failed to mention the Dr. Sam Shephard murder trial: see, https://www.thompsoncoburn.com/docs/default-source/Bio-relat...

(pdf)

giancarlostoro• 6 years ago

Wasnt there something about Ted Bundy being the first case or case of its type on camera? So they were not always on camera. Florida also has strong public record laws which I think more states should have to a degree. The people deserve to know what the police are doing after an investigation closes.

chewxy• 6 years ago

I thought the story of the kidnapping sounded a little familiar. And so TIL that Murder on the Orient Express was based on that real life story.

nendroid• 6 years ago

I think the government itself should record all trials not for public release but for archival, evidence and review. How else do you being down a racist or corrupt judge?

RickJWagner• 6 years ago

wow. The kidnapping happened in 1932, it took 2 years to find the perpetrator, sentence (death) was carried out in 1936.

The wheels of justice turned much faster then.

jrace2• 6 years ago

I am interested in what would happen if we took this a step further.

Judgments by judge or jury to be done 'blind'. Neither to see the person on trial.

How many people are not given proper justice becuase of how they look?

No matter what you will not be able to remove bias, whether it is being overly harsh because of the persons skin color, or overly easy because the person is attractive.

https://www.thelawproject.com.au/insights/attractiveness-bia...

>in one study, the effects of physical attractiveness on judges were so influential, they fined unattractive criminals 304.88% higher than attractive criminals.

xeromal• 6 years ago

That would be a fun experiment! Not even on racial bias, but heck, self identification or as you said, attractiveness. I wonder if you could hide away their voice too. Voices definitely are attractive or not to many peoples' ears.

mensetmanusman• 6 years ago

We know how the public reacted to social media.

If you think adding more cameras to Washington would help things...

I guess if we are trying to maximize entertainment, it would be a good idea.

Charles Lindbergh is the reason the U.S. doesn't have cameras in the courtroom

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