The Cautionary Instruction: No tweets, no blogs, no posts, oh my

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/Ipso Facto
February 10, 2012

This week the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette suggested that readers take action to protect their rights to real-time updates from Pennsylvania’s courtrooms.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Criminal Procedure Rules Committee has proposed prohibiting the use of electronic communication devices in courtrooms. Specifically, the proposed rule would prohibit “transmission by cellular phone, personal communications device, computer, or any other electronic device that has communications capabilities or internet connectivity.”

Pennsylvania has trailed far behind other states in terms of making courtrooms accessible to a wider audience. Although, the Supreme Court let cameras in for some of their arguments, Pennsylvania remains one of only nine states with an outright ban on recording criminal proceedings.

Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille has made it clear that the commonwealth does not intend to make a dramatic shift in terms of opening Pennsylvania’s courtrooms. The Chief Justice recently acknowledged that opening the Supreme Court to cameras would, in turn, raise the question of whether trial courts should also be opened.

While the Supreme Court has the power to change the rules that bar recording, broadcasting and photography, Castille told the Allentown Moring Call the court has little interest in taking that step. "It's probably not going to be in the near future," he said.

The federal government bans cameras in the courtroom. Rule 53 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure bars the taking of photographs in the courtroom or the broadcasting of criminal proceedings. The national policy-making body for the federal courts, the Judicial Conference of the United States, provides that courtroom proceedings may not be broadcast, televised, recorded, or photographed for the purpose of public dissemination.

Judge Mark Bennet of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa recently permitted real-time electronic communication from his courtroom during a trial. He told the ABA Journal, "I thought the public's right to know what goes on in federal court and the transparency that would be given the proceedings by live-blogging outweighed any potential prejudice to the defendant. . . . I allowed it because of my belief that we are the most mysterious branch of federal government and we need to find ways to be more transparent."

In New York, where cameras are also barred from the courtroom, a state court judge recently allowed a local newspaper to post live Twitter updates from inside the courtroom during a murder trial. Court administrator David Bookstaver noted that judges are often more distracted by reporters “coming and going” as they leave the courtroom to make phone calls, permitting the use of portable electronic devices keep reporters in their seats.

A ban on electronic communications is appropriate for jurors. In Pennsylvania, jury instructions have long admonished jurors to refrain from getting information from any outside sources including the internet.

Preventing the media from reporting on trials in real-time, essentially imposing a judicial “broadcast delay,” is an unnecessary suppression of public access.

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