Federal Courts Stay Off-Camera

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Federal courts operate in their own little world, and that world will remain off-camera. Despite the reported success of a small-scale pilot program that allowed cameras into civil trials, the Judicial Conference of the United States has ended the experiment and retained a ban on cameras in federal courtrooms. The result was unexpected and unfortunate.

The current limited experiment began July 1, 1991, in federal district courts in Indianapolis, Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, Seattle and Manhattan and appellate courts based in Manhattan and San Francisco. Only civil trials were involved, at the total discretion of the judges, who approved requests in scores of cases. The …