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Article: Cameras in Court
- Article from:
- West's Encyclopedia of American Law
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 The Gale Group, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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CAMERAS IN COURT
Cameras and courtrooms have long had an uneasy relationship. Blaming cameras for disrupting trials, the american bar association (ABA) led the drive for their removal in the mid-1930s. The effort succeeded: all but two state courts banned them, and Congress prohibited them from all federal trials. But the television era ushered in new problems, and courts eventually were forced to grapple with the constitutional question of whether TV cameras are injurious to a defendant's right to a fair trial. In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court appeared to say they are, in
Estes v. Texas
, 381 U.S. 532, 85 S. Ct. 1628, 14 L. Ed. 2d 543, overturning a conviction because cameras had denied ...