Cameras in the Courtroom

Florida 's Bundy case tests the fairness of televising trials

Courtroom drama buffs did not have to settle for Perry Mason reruns last week. In dozens of cities, they could turn on the nightly news and see the high spots of a real trial that was far more bizarre than anything Hollywood has ever put on prime time.

Leading his own defense was Theodore Robert Bundy, the handsome former Boy Scout, Mr. Up-and-Coming Republican" and model student charged with murdering two coeds at a Floriida State University sorority house and suspected of the murders of up to 36 women in four different states. At the Miami courthouse to record and broadcast his trial were the crews of three major networks and some 22 television stations. Last week, when the prosecutor showed the jury photographs of bite marks on the buttocks and breast of a victim's corpse, a TV "pool" camera man and a still photographer in the first row of the press section took it all in -though they refrained from closeups, and some stations edited out the more grusome shots.

Real-life trials are still rare television viewing. In the '50s, every state except and Texas banned televised trials and Texas gave up on them in the mid-'60s. But in the past three years, 14 have opened up their courts to cameras.* The reason: new technology and changed attitudes have begun to tip the scales in a longstanding debate. The argument for TV cameras in the courtroom is simple enough: the public ought to be able to see what goes on at a trial. The argument against is that jurors will be distracted, that witnesses will be intimidated, and that lawyers and judges, particularly elected judges, will grand stand. In short, that defendants will be deprived of their right to a fair trial. Foes of televised trials, who include many on the bench and in the bar, also fear that cameras will invade the privacy of defendants and witnesses, especially in rape cases or seamy divorces.

In 1965 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the fraud conviction of Financier Billie Sol Estes because the carnival-like atmosphere of his televised trial in Texas had deprived him of due process and subjected him to "a form of mental--if not physical--harassment, resembling a police line-up or the third degree." At the Estes trial, twelve cameramen jostled for position, and bright lights and a tangle of wires and equipment turned the courtroom into a broadcast studio.

The Bundy trial has none of that.

New technology has produced cameras that are compact and need no extra light; court rules limit their number and location. Perhaps just as important, people have become accustomed to the pervasiveness of TV. Studies in several states show little evidence that cameras affect jurors or witnesses. At the Bundy trial last week two jurors were blase enough to fall asleep--on-camera.

The question is rapidly becoming when, not whether, trials should be televised. Most states that now let cameras into the courtroom require the permission of the prosecutor, the defendant and often the witnesses. In several states, like Florida, the press is presumed to have the right to televise trials without permission, though judges can bar cameras if they see a real risk of prejudice. Bundy and his lawyers have repeatedly objected, calling the trial a "media event" and warning of prejudice to jurors in other courts where Bundy must still stand trial. But Miami Judge Edward Cowart was unmoved. He told TIME: "Cameras haven't impacted procedures the way some felt they would. It's better to have photographers in the courtroom than running up and down the halls."

About 20 additional states are now considering whether to give TV cameras a trial run in their courts. As more do, cases are likely to arise that will give the Supreme Court another chance to try to strike a balance between fair trial and free press.

* Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Washington and Wisconsin have accepted the practice. Alaska, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, and West Virginia are now experimenting.

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