Will The Cameras Be Rolling?

For the eighth time in the last three years New York City is bracing for The Trial of the Century.

In 1987 it was the People vs. the Subway Gunman, Bernie Goetz. Then the Howard Beach racial attack; the Preppy Mans-laughter, and the sick parable of Joel Steinberg and Hedda Nussbaum competing with the Bess Mess across the street at the federal courthouse. Next on the dicey docket came the tax travails of Queen Leona--hotel magnate and friend of the little people. And finally, this spring, was another racial incident that became known as a place--Bensonhurst. For different reasons, each trial mesmerized the tabloids and local news shows. But for exquisite drama, it was the Steinberg murder prosecution that most people remember. Why? Because much of it was televised--and the pitiful seven-day testimony of Nussbaum, the battered companion under Steinberg's spell, was carried live.

It could happen again, in a trial implicating the three R's: race, rape and riot. This week, after several false starts, the case of the Central Park jogger formally begins, with jury selection for three of the six minority codefendants accused of brutalizing a young, white runner in April 1989. But even before the courtroom theatrics--and there certainly will be those, over such matters as coerced confessions of the teenagers--television coverage has emerged as a battleground. Ironically, it's also one of the few subjects on which prosecution and defense agree: both want the pool camera unplugged. That represents a switch for the Manhattan district attorney's office, which usually takes no view. One of the new pressures now may be The American Lawyer Media's Legal Channel, a nascent national all-law cable network that wants to provide live, total coverage for 650,000 local viewers. The judge, who allowed television for pretrial proceedings, has promised a decision this week.

Tape delay: In the last decade cameras in courtrooms have become ubiquitous and innocuous; 44 states now permit their use and technology has rendered the equipment a virtual part of the furniture. Yet, the perception persists among lawyers and judges that coverage risks insidious harm. Defense counsel typically sense something bad for their clients, even though they probably have already had their faces brandished by the press. Concerns are usually vague. The prosecutor in the jogger case says witnesses fear for their safety and that the trial will involve "lewd and scandalous" material. But why will TV necessarily endanger safety, especially if witnesses' faces are not shown close up? And why is shocking testimony always unfit for video consumption when print media--which can't be banned from the courtroom--are free to publish as they please? As for protecting the identity of the jogger, the TV pool has promised to provide a 10-second tape delay to allow stations with live coverage to delete her name.

So much for the putative perils of the camera. What of its benefits? On the ugly heels of the Bensonhurst trial, some commentators would paint the jogger case in the larger landscape of race relations. Television--literal as it ideally can be--might portray the case, simply and elegantly, as a terrible act of violence.