A federal judge’s decision to allow Civil Beat to report live from a courtroom puts Hawaii on the “cutting edge” of media access to trials, legal experts say.
Chief U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway on Tuesday granted Civil Beat’s request to bring a laptop and wireless Internet connection into the courtroom for the Aloun Farms human trafficking trial.
This marks the first time in Hawaii history that a federal judge has permitted a reporter to use a computer in her courtroom during a trial, or allowed that reporter to transmit to the Internet from the courtroom, says Gina Doane, chief deputy clerk for the U.S. District Court in Hawaii.
Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and veteran criminal law scholar, was impressed by the judge’s decision.
“I think that’s fantastic. It’s cutting edge. The federal courts really haven’t come to agreement on this issue. The judges don’t even allow cameras in the courtroom so you’re the next best thing,” she said. “I think that this judge is being as open and liberal as possible given the federal rules.”
While there are some judges opening their courtrooms to live media coverage, they’re primarily in state court.
“What’s unusual for you is that it’s a federal court. They’ve been slower to open their courtrooms, especially in criminal cases,” Levenson said. “They’ve really held the line on criminal cases.”
Why?
“They’re uncomfortable. It’s not their tradition,” she said. “I think some of them have been scared off by high profile cases like O.J. Simpson and now the Casey Anthony case. It makes judges really nervous. Federal judges like to have complete control of their courtroom.”
Reporters in other federal jurisdictions have been permitted to cover cases live, but most of the early cases involved media following court proceedings from a separate room.
The Houston Chronicle and Washington Post among others, maintained live coverage of the 2006 Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling trial with their news blogs — Enron: TrialWatch and In the Pipeline. Reporters were limited to the separate “overflow press room,” where they watched the court proceedings on a big-screen television.
Firedoglake’s six-person volunteer blogging team provided live coverage of the 2007 Scooter Libby trial, but laptops were only allowed in the media room.
That same year, the Rocky Mountain News, the Denver Post and Wall Street Journal sent live updates from the trial of Former Qwest Communications CEO Joe Nacchio.
According to one law journal article, “The trial judge permitted computers, but initially only by the press. This enabled the two daily newspapers in Denver to blog the trial live, with laptops having their own wireless Internet access.”
The judge also ultimately allowed individuals who were not members of the press to bring in laptops if they remained in the overflow courtroom.
Reporters were allowed to send live updates of California’s 2010 Proposition 8 trial via Twitter, such as those of @FedCourt Junkie.
In California’s Northern District, where no special permission is needed to bring laptops in to court or use them for reporting, the court attempted to go a step further by allowing the broadcasting of certain Proposition 8 proceedings on YouTube. But the U.S. Supreme Court held that the program violated federal law because the district court hadn’t allowed the public enough opportunity to comment on it, according to an article for the Hastings Communication & Entertainment Law Journal.
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