THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 11, 1994 TAG: 9411110050
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A22 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
Judge Lance Ito didn't order the television camera from his courtroom. He did order it out of witnesses' face: It must be mounted on the wall and remotely controlled. Court TV, which is sponsoring the camera, and other media representatives vying for the 27 seats allotted the press in the courtroom, sighed with relief. And among the 17 million Americans who have watched some part of the proceedings so far, who would have it any other way?
Only the 14,001 letter writers who took up columnist Mike Royko's suggestion that opponents urge Judge Ito to ban the camera, that's who. But the man presiding over the trial of O. J. Simpson for the murders of his wife and her friend wasn't likely to pull the TV plug anyway. The camera in the courtroom is stationary and neutral, the most accurate lens of all the media covering this case like lava.
No, the judge's intent was to jerk the chain of the press outside the courtroom, with its false reports of incriminating evidence, its paid interviews with anybody remotely connected to the case and its steady drumbeat of sex, race and contradictory ``expert'' opinions. And his threat seems to have calmed some of the worst offenders in the sensationalism stakes, at least until the trial starts in earnest the first of the year.
The judge was right to be concerned. O. J. Simpson is due a fair trial. The country needs to see him get it, to see what the jury sees as the jury sees it, unedited by the press. And the jury must decide this case according to what transpires inside the courtroom, not outside.
To further ensure that, the prosecutors have asked that the jury be sequestered. The judge seems to lean that way. Defense attorneys, however, seem to want it both ways: the court proceedings televised and jurors sent home at night - except in a particular instance that could mean bad news for O. J. Simpson. They don't want the pretrial hearing on the admissibility of DNA evidence televised because the TV audience might see something the jury will later be denied.
Yet Mr. Shapiro and other attorneys also argue that televising the proceedings is educational. And so it is. And so televising the DNA hearing would be particularly educate many laymen much troubled by this issue: How is it that evidence which purports to be so conclusive as to guilt or innocence can be excluded? by CNB