Objection!: How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System

by Nancy Grace

  Moreover, we are the people—“the people” specifically discussed in the Constitution. It is our trial. We created the government and the court system—and we foot the bill. We have a right to see and to know what is going on in the people’s courts. If a camera happens to expose the wrongs of our system—that’s all the more reason we need it there.

  I believe that people want to know that the system works. People want to know that the jury is struck, that the judge is on the bench and knows the law, that fairness prevails, that no one is above or beneath the law, and that truth will triumph. The numbers bear this out. An estimated 150 million Americans watched the verdict in the Simpson case—

  millions more than witnessed the 1969 moonwalk. When the reality show Survivor hit big, TV critics swore that it would forever transform the O B J E C T I O N !

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  country’s viewing habits. The truth is, reality television had already found a home on cable a long time before, when Court TV debuted in 1991 and began televising trials. Today it’s seen in 83 million homes.

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  M O V I E

  Court TV gives viewers the unvarnished truth with its fly-on-the-wall view of trials. The network has offered gavel-to-gavel coverage of some of the highest-profile cases that have made headlines since the early nineties, including the trials of William Kennedy Smith, Jeffrey Dahmer, Jack Kevorkian, Rodney King, Lorena Bobbitt, Tonya Harding, the Menendez brothers, Jayson Williams, Rae Carruth, Rabbi Fred Neulander, and David Westerfield.

  Other less publicized but equally significant trials that have also been televised on the network include the case in 2001 at which Chante Mallard was tried for running over Gregory Biggs, a homeless man in Fort Worth, Texas. After unsuccessfully trying to remove Biggs’s man-gled body from her windshield, she drove home with the man still dan-gling from her car. She let him die a slow death in her garage overnight and the next day had two men dump Biggs’s body in a nearby park. A jury needed only an hour to convict Mallard of murder. She got fifty years for the murder and another ten for tampering with evidence. At the time of sentencing, Mallard’s lawyer said, “If this case would have been moved somewhere else where there weren’t cameras in the courtroom, there would have been a different result.” Prosecutor Richard Alpert told reporters that the jury had returned “a just verdict.”

  Watching the trial every day, I was amazed at the lack of compas-sion Mallard displayed for the man she killed. Those impressions were only heightened when I watched the victim’s son, Brandon Biggs, on the stand. This young man said he had always yearned for a relationship with his father and had now lost any chance of having one. The 2 8 8

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  contrast between someone who cared so little about this person and another who was hurt so deeply by his death is something I’ll never forget.

  A readback of testimony would never have shown me that. Only the camera let me see what was really happening. No wonder the defense attorney didn’t want the world to watch.

  I vividly remember watching the trial of Brandon Wilson in 1998.

  Wilson had murdered a sweet little nine-year-old boy, Matthew Checci, minutes after the child entered a restroom at a beach in Oceanside, California. The weekend before the trial, I had waited for my own little nephew to come out of the men’s room at a mall. I nearly became ill when I watched the Checci trial as it started days later. I knew why people watched the Wilson trial. The stories told in court are things that could happen to your son, daughter, mother, father, spouse—or to you. We watch, and we wait to make sure that justice wins out.

  The camera told the heartbreaking story of Checci’s death—which Wilson gleefully reenacted for the police. Wilson took the stand against the wishes of his attorney, Curt Owen, and told jurors he felt no remorse for killing Checci and would murder him again “in a second.” Although the Wisconsin drifter pled guilty to murder with a special circumstance of lying in wait, California law also allowed him to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Justice did prevail. The jury decided that Wilson should face the death penalty. He is currently appealing the verdict.

  T H E B L O O M I S O F F

  T H E R O B E

  Federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court ban camera access to their courtrooms. Why?

  Remember when I mentioned the request for the public to hear arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in the matter of the hand-tallied Florida ballots in the 2000 presidential election?

  Also remember that the Court said no. That decision barring citizens O B J E C T I O N !

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  the ability to see those proceedings was a grave mistake. Here’s a clue as to why the Court was so adamant that the public not be privy to its functions: Justice David Souter told a House of Representatives sub-committee in 1996 that camera coverage of the Supreme Court would occur only over his dead body. That is who is making the rules that determine how you and I will live. Think about it.

  Though the Supreme Court’s duty is to interpret the Constitution and serve the people, barring us from the Court does not serve the interests of said people. By not letting us see proceedings that resulted in the Court’s vote split straight down party lines over the 2000 election, I charge they ruled in their own interests, not the country’s. Highbrow claims are often made to reason why the lens is barred from courtrooms. Some argue that lawyers will grandstand. Here’s a news flash: Lawyers grandstand no matter what—camera or no camera. The ones that ham it up would ham it up if only the court’s calendar clerk were present, and she’s probably reading the local newspaper under her desk.

  Maybe the Court could learn from the House of Representatives, which opened its doors to camera coverage in 1977. The Senate followed in 1986. In a November 2000 article for National Policy Analysis, Amy Ridenour reported certain elected officials lost weight, bought hairpieces, and started wearing makeup on camera, but reasoned no one could “seriously” argue “that the country is worse off because of C-SPAN.” I agree. No one in his right mind could perceive the network as a security threat. Like Congress, the Court is doing the people’s business, and the people have the right to see that.

  Some opponents claim that cameras could cause concern for child witnesses and victims. Point well taken. I advocate that their desires must be strongly weighed by the court, along with those of the other trial participants. In most cases, the only trial participants who aren’t in court as a matter of their own doing are victims and certain witnesses.

  Lawyers, clerks, judges, and bailiffs are all paid to be there. Defendants likely committed a voluntary criminal or wrongful act resulting in their “attendance.” But this is not an issue for the U.S. Supreme Court.

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  There are never witnesses before that court. Only lawyers appear at that level, in order to argue violations of law in lower courts.

  Others argue that the camera could reduce the public’s respect for the Court. Well, that argument’s not half wrong. After the Supremes’

  decision to bar the people from the election proceedings and then split their vote directly down political party lines, I’m not so sure they deserve the profound respect I always had for them. Since the beginning of my legal career, I revered them. The U.S. Supreme Court’s handling of this matter forever changed my deep awe of the Court and what it stands for. I’m not referring to the actual election or its outcome. That’s politics. I’m talking about the law of the land, by which we live and are governed. I’m directly referring to the Court, their predictable voting pattern down party lines and their decision to shut America out of their courtroom.

  H O W D I D W E G E T H E R E ?

  There is a long history regarding open courts and allowing cameras to bring those proceedings to the people. Truth be told, Charles Lindbergh unwittingly pioneered a new age for America’s courts after the disappearance and death of his baby, Charles Augustus Jr. The twenty-mont
h-old infant was stolen from his crib at the Lindberghs’ New Jersey home one night in March 1932. A homemade ladder and a ransom note were found at the scene. Lindbergh delivered the money on April 2 with hopes that baby Charlie would come home unharmed. He did not. On May 12, the tot was found dead, his body buried in a shallow grave near Trenton, New Jersey. Things quickly spun out of control. Lindbergh and his wife learned the shocking news that after their son was recovered, reporters had illegally entered the morgue and taken photos of the tiny body.

  The FBI arrested a German-born carpenter, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, two years later in the Bronx, New York: Ransom money had been found in his garage. The press was relentless. When the trial began in O B J E C T I O N !

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  January 1935, it created an unprecedented media frenzy, one that chronicled the Lindberghs’ every move. Three months after Charlie’s body had been found, Lindbergh’s wife, Anne, gave birth to a second son, Jon. The grieving father begged the press to leave the child alone.

  His pleas went unheeded. At one point during the six-week trial, the case was so sensationalized that a photographer forced the car carrying Jon and the baby’s nurse off the road.

  After a jury trial, Hauptmann was convicted and sentenced to death.

  On April 3, 1936, he died in the electric chair. The Lindberghs couldn’t escape the media hounding, so they moved to Europe in hopes of regaining some of their privacy and to protect their then-three-year-old son.

  Like the Simpson case much later, the Lindbergh case was called the

  “trial of the century” and it was reported that 700 newspapermen and 129 cameramen had made their way to the Flemington, New Jersey, courthouse. Cars, planes, telegraphs, and telephones were used to get reports to metropolitan New York and out for worldwide distribution. The little New Jersey town with one telegraph operator suddenly sprouted forty-five direct wires; a special teletype machine connected directly with London; a direct wire to Halifax, Nova Scotia; and quick service to Paris, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Shanghai, Melbourne, and other major cities around the world.

  Prior to this case, there had never been a trial more ripe for media exploitation. There was also never a case before Lindbergh that determined the rule of behavior during trials. Judge Newton Baker wrote that the trial displayed “perhaps the most spectacular and depressing example of improper publicity and professional misconduct ever presented to the people of the United States in a criminal trial.”

  The New York Times reported that on January 3, 1935, “Constables on duty at the door admitted 275 spectators without passes to an already crowded courtroom. . . . Men and women sat on the window sills and jammed the small space between the bench and the wall.” The Mirror wrote that on January 22 of that year, “The Bronx subway was never like the courthouse here.” On January 28, it reported that “the fourth broken 2 9 2

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  courtroom window was registered at 3:01 during a recess, so choked to capacity are the window sills.” One witness, the novelist Edna Ferber, described the court as “a shambles. . . . Planned to accommodate perhaps a hundred, it was jammed with what seemed at least a thousand, seated, standing, leaning, perched on window sills, craning over balcony rails, peering through doorways.” Newspaper headlines screamed out THE

  FLEMINGTON CROWD; IT’S A SIDESHOW, A JAMBOREE; IT’S A HOLIDAY, A FREAK

  SHOW. The judge ordered that no photos would be allowed during proceedings, so of course the press published in-court photographs steadily, from “Mrs. Lindbergh testifying” to “Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh on the Stand” and “Hauptmann Juror No. 11,” with color commentary on each.

  Recording equipment was placed in the courtroom’s balcony.

  It all ended with an American Bar Association Report in January 1936 in which a special committee of ABA members was tasked to work with the press to create standards regarding publicity of criminal trials. Naturally, the lawyers and the newsmen disagreed violently on one point: the use of cameras in the courtroom. The ABA stated that

  “no use of cameras or photographic appliances [will] be permitted in the courtroom,” and “with regard to the foregoing recommendation, the committee is unanimous in recommending that the use of cameras in the courtroom should be only with the knowledge and approval of the trial judge . . . and the consent of counsel for the accused in criminal cases and of counsel for both parties in civil cases should be secured.

  The newspaper representatives believe that the consent of the trial judge is full protection both to parties and to witnesses, and that no further requirement should be interposed.”

  The media responded that the American public “has, by constitutional guarantee, the right to the most complete information as to what is afoot in its courts,” and that “provided the picture is made without disturbing the decorum of the court or otherwise obstructing the ends of justice, the publisher of a newspaper has the right . . . both to make the picture and to print it.” Another outlet opined that this right “is part of the constitutional privilege of the press to print the news, and also part O B J E C T I O N !

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  of the people’s constitutional right to be informed by its free and full publication.”

  While arguing over implementation, both sides agreed that regulation of publicity and camera usage was necessary. A final ruling by the bar in 1936 stated, “Proceedings in court should be conducted with fitting dignity and decorum. The taking of photographs in the courtroom, during sessions of the court or recesses between sessions, and the broadcasting of court proceedings are calculated to detract from the essential dignity of the proceedings, degrade the court and create misconceptions with respect thereto in the mind of the public and should not be permitted.” The press was furious, and the battle continues to rage.

  Fast-forward to today: After many more legal skirmishes, forty-eight states now allow camera coverage in at least some court proceedings. Our courtrooms are again becoming the people’s court envisioned by our Founding Fathers so long ago. Since we, the people, foot the bill for the judges, prosecutors, many defense attorneys, and court personnel—since they work for us and carry out their duties on our behalf—we have a right to see what’s going on in our courtrooms.

  If a circus is mounted outside the courthouse, then the camera is the cure, not the cause. Full trial coverage, not spin from jousting reporters and pundits, allows people to make up their own minds. With or without cameras, trials themselves will always generate great interest.

  Some argue that the presence of cameras causes grandstanding and longer proceedings, but the facts do not bear this out. The case of California’s Hillside Strangler began in late 1981 and dragged on for nearly two years, while Charles Manson’s took nine months. Neither courtroom had camera access.

  While those forty-eight states vary in their rules, they are unified in allowing true access to the people through the lens. Some allow extensive coverage, such as Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. Other states, like Alabama, Maryland, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, allow only appellate coverage or apply other restrictive rules. As of spring 2004, Court TV has televised 2 9 4

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  nearly one thousand trials. Justice is marching forward, whether the U.S. Supreme Court notices or not.

  G O I N G T O O F A R

  But there are limits to where cameras should be allowed to go. In 2002, Judge Ted Poe of Harris County’s 228th District Court in Texas agreed to allow an unmanned television camera to film jury deliberations in the death-penalty case of seventeen-year-old Cedric R. Harrison for the PBS show Frontline.

  The defense agreed with the judge’s decision, but prosecutors fought back on day one of individual jury selection. The state appeals court sided with prosecutors, stopped the trial, and ordered Poe to explain himself. The judge defended his decision by saying that the camera would be there for “educational purposes.” The case was ultimately transferred
to another judge, and the camera was banished from the proceedings.

  In my mind, Poe single-handedly transformed the most serious decision a jury will ever make into a (thankfully thwarted) reality show.

  The desire to appear on a television series should not be added to the qualifications for jury service. As a matter of fact, the decision immediately altered the jury pool. Every juror who objected to being filmed was automatically thrown off jury duty. Do you blame them?

  The law seemed squarely opposed to Poe’s position. The Code of Criminal Procedure states that no person shall be permitted to be with a jury while it is deliberating, providing confidentiality as to jury deliberations. In my experience, despite those renegade jurors looking for their fifteen minutes of fame, the great majority of those who serve take their duty extremely seriously and must decide the case without the threat of being judged, shamed, or ridiculed by TV audiences plopped on their sofas eating chips. They must remain immune from public scrutiny. It’s hard enough for twelve strangers to reach a verdict. If they had to worry about what their neighbors would think of them, their job would be impossible.

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  The Constitution guarantees a public trial, not public jury deliberations. Can you imagine the new line of appellate attack by defense attorneys far and wide? Creating the precedent of allowing a camera in the jury room also will create a trend among criminal-defense attorneys. The new trial demand could be something like, “I demand to have a camera in jury deliberations to record jury misconduct. I want to have a videotape.” And then, on appeal, every facial tic, every nuance during deliberations will be a perceived ground for reversal. It will extend it to all civil and criminal cases.