Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, September 22, 1994                   TAG: 9409240041
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

NO TV IN FEDERAL COURTS

The vote by the policy-making Judicial Conference of the United States, was a severe setback to years of news media efforts to open federal court proceedings to television, as has been done by 47 states in non-federal courts. The action was formally announced Wednesday.

David Sellers, spokesman for the conference, said the recent spate of sensational court proceedings such as the O.J. Simpson case did not figure in the discussions. Rather, he said, the judges on the panel were concerned about the potential negative impact of TV cameras on jurors or witnesses.

``The bottom line, by about a vote of 2-1, was a concern about jurors, witnesses, potential distractions for jurors and witnesses, whether or not they were more nervous and, in particular, whether or not they feared for any harm,'' Sellers said.

The vote of the 27-member body went counter to a study for the conference, which found ``small or no effects of camera presence on participants in the proceedings, courtroom decorum or the administration of justice.''

``One-third of our federal government will remain inaccessible to American citizens,'' said Brian Lamb, chief executive officer of C-SPAN. ``The sad result is that most people's knowledge about judicial systems will now be limited to sensational criminal trials.''

Jeff Cohen, executive director of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a media watch group based in New York, said cameras in courtrooms ``are good for democracy, good for the public to see the workings of the judiciary.'' He added: ``I don't want to seem to be endorsing the TV networks, whose performance is sometimes shameless.''

Dave Bartlett, president of the Radio Television News Directors Association, called it ``a surprising and silly decision.'' He said ``a good many federal judges ... arrogantly ignored the facts in order to reach a predetermined political conclusion.''

A Federal Judicial Center study presented this spring covered two years of a 31/2-year experiment in which six U.S. district courts and two federal appeals courts permitted cameras in court.

Of 257 applications, 186 proceedings in civil trials were approved for television coverage from July 1, 1991, through June 30, 1993, and cameras recorded and photographed 147 of them.

The experiment was conducted in district courts of Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Washington and in federal appeals courts in New York and San Francisco. It ends Dec. 31.

``Judges, media representatives, and court staff found the guidelines governing the program to be generally workable,'' said the report. ``Overall, judges and court staff report that members of the media were very cooperative.

``Overall, attitudes of judges ... were initially neutral and became more favorable after experience under the pilot program,'' the report said.

Sellers said Chief Justice of the Supreme Court William Rehnquist, who heads the conference, votes only in the case of ties. The conference issued no public report, other than noting the use of cameras was not approved.