TV CAMERAS ON TRIAL

By Jill Smolowe

LIKE A BARNUM & BAILEY ADVANCE team, television crews caravaned into Union, South Carolina, weeks ago for the murder trial of Susan Smith. After unloading thousands of dollars' worth of equipment, scores of technicians invaded the town's 82-year-old courthouse, installing lights and vying for camera angles that accentuated the high ceilings. Meanwhile, lawyers debated whether the trial should be televised at all. Those in favor argued that live testimony would provide an opportunity to heal Union's wounds. Smith's lawyer, David Bruck, countered that potential witnesses feared an O.J. Simpson-type spectacle that would make them "as recognizable as Kato Kaelin."

Judge William Howard Jr. agreed with the defense: "I know, for me, when there is a camera, there is an effect," he said. Then he gave the camera crews just five minutes to pack up and leave. Thus when Smith went on trial last week for the drowning murder of her two sons, the soft whirr of cameras was replaced by a far quainter sound--the scratches and squeaks of 10 sketch artists, plying their trade with color pencils and markers.

For a trial-happy public that has grown accustomed to tuning in to CNN or Court TV for its daily courtroom fix, Howard's decision must have been a bitter blow. But Howard isn't the only judge in the 47 states that permit courtroom cameras who has been spooked by the Simpson case. Superior Court Judge Lawrence Antolini, who is currently presiding over the California trial of the accused murderer of Polly Klaas, has imposed a gag order on lawyers and restricted TV coverage to the first five minutes of each court day. Last week he vowed, "Nothing like the O.J. Simpson case is going to happen in my courtroom."

Strikingly, the mounting backlash against televised trials owes little to concerns about the First Amendment's guarantees of a free press vs. the Sixth Amendment's promise of a fair trial, an issue that has yet to be resolved by the Supreme Court. Instead, the legal community is assessing the fallout from the Simpson case--the media stalking of witnesses, the glut of pop books, the glamourization of commentators--and concluding that a camera lens does far more than just behold. Those who have been inside the Simpson courtroom note how lawyers have learned to turn their back to the camera when exchanging jokes and smirks. And though joking persists even after Judge Lance Ito enters the chamber, solemnity rules once the camera begins to roll. Even home viewers perceive the impact as they monitor Marcia Clark's Di-like makeover, with hair that's gone from shaggy mane to Madison Avenue sleek and a once frumpy wardrobe that now rivals Grace Van Owen's on L.A. Law.

While judges are leading the charge to purge courtrooms of cameras, some press members have also taken up the cause. Last month Don Hewitt, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, editorialized in the New York Times that the Simpson trial should not have been televised. "I don't like the idea that a murder trial has been turned into an entertainment special," he says. "There are certain moments in American life that have a certain dignity."

Others argue that cameras are not the problem, they are the solution. "The camera is the antidote to the media circus," contends Steven Brill, founder of Court TV. Besides, he adds, lawyers "showboat, even without cameras." Journalists fear that the twin decisions to bar cameras from the Smith and Klaas trials set a dangerous precedent. "The O.J. thing is an aberration," says Wade Ricks, a CNN field producer. "Trials can be handled in a thoughtful manner so that they instruct, enlighten and entertain." And Jane Kirtley of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press maintains that had the public not seen the shaky prosecution case in the William Kennedy Smith rape trial, the subsequent acquittal would have provoked an outcry. "[Trials are] the public's business," she says. "It is The People vs. O.J. Simpson and The People vs. Susan Smith."

Some of the players swept into the Simpson maelstrom contend that cameras have made the case into The People vs. the Witnesses. Just ask Pablo Fenjves. A year after testifying about hearing Nicole Simpson's dog on the night of the murders, Fenjves is still greeted in supermarkets, "Hey, you're the 'plaintive wail' guy!" Tourists chase him down streets, and he has even received death threats. "It's a pretty terrifying experience," he says.

Some commentators predict that the anticamera sentiment will subside once the Simpson jury reaches a verdict. "After that happens, I suspect courts will become more permissive again," says professor James Carey of the Columbia School of Journalism. But will America's pool of potential witnesses prove so resilient? "Would I do it again if I had known?" asks Fenjves. "I don't know."

--Reported by Adam Cohen/New York, Elaine Lafferty/Los Angeles and Lisa H. Towle/Union

With reporting by ADAM COHEN/NEW YORK, ELAINE LAFFERTY/LOS ANGELES AND LISA H. TOWLE/UNION