Courtroom cameras focus on Whiteside County
Comments (...)About 25 journalists and court officials from Illinois’ 14th Judicial Circuit got together in Rock Island this week to try to figure out how cameras are going to fit into courtrooms.
Both sides learned that it will not be as simple as it sounds.
Most courtrooms were not built with the idea of accommodating a photographer or a camera tripod, and no local government is going to be interested in paying for architectural modifications to accomplish that.
But the Illinois Supreme Court has agreed to make us the 37th state to permit visual reporting in trial courts, so we need to figure out how it’s going to work.
And fast.
GROUND ZERO FOR introducing cameras to Illinois courtrooms will be Whiteside County.
“The hot button now is Whiteside [County],” said District Chief Judge Jeffrey O’Connor, “because everybody wants to do Sheley.”
That, of course, is Nicholas T. Sheley of Sterling, who is charged with the murders of five people in Whiteside County.
He has already been convicted of one killing, in Knox County, and he faces charges that he murdered two people in Missouri.
“I think it’s going to hit the fan in Whiteside [County] first,” O’Connor said at this week’s meeting. “I really want it to go smoothly and seamlessly.
“I don’t want a circus. I want it done and over with.”
Easier said than done.
HOW THE COURTROOM in Morrison, where Sheley is scheduled for trial next month in one murder case, can accommodate cameras will be the subject of another meeting on Feb. 24.
Judge O’Connor will be in town that day for a preliminary hearing in Sheley’s case. So he invited the media to gather again to examine the courtroom layout.
During this week’s meeting, he offered a tour of Rock Island County’s facilities. The 10-year-old Justice Center there has 16 courtrooms, each of which is already monitored by a court camera mounted high in a corner of the room.
The courtroom that O’Connor has designed for Rock Island’s camera “trial period” is spacious, with three rows of visitor seating in the back. Behind those wooden bench seats is a space where a video camera can be mounted on a tripod to record courtroom activities.
Making use of cameras in Whiteside County courtrooms will take a little more creativity.
O’CONNOR THOUGHT newspapers could bring in a photographer, shoot still photos, and everything would be good with the print media.
The problem, he said, would be dealing with the video needs of television.
He was surprised to learn that newspapers, too, wanted video reports to enhance the value of their websites – and that newspapers might also be interested in streaming live video over the Internet.
Newspaper photographers informed him that their still cameras were also capable of producing video. This newspaper equipped its shooters with such cameras last year.
Things are not as simple as they used to be.
EVEN THE JUDGE’S “gold standard” for equipping courtrooms in a visual age proved to be more complicated than he had imagined.
He suggested the TV stations pay to install a remote-controlled video camera in each “pilot program” courtroom to produce visuals for broadcast.
He didn’t even flinch when a TV reporter told him that would cost about $20,000 a courtroom for the high-definition cameras that would be needed.
The judge figured the use of courtroom images would drive TV ratings – even newspaper sales – which would produce additional revenue to offset the cost of cameras.
If only it were that simple.
WE NEED THOSE readers who object to our publication of Sheley’s photo to explain to the judge that such images are not always a welcome addition to the newspaper’s report.
The TV representatives at this week’s meeting, who are experienced in shooting video in Iowa courts, explained that courtroom video didn’t usually cause any kind of spike in viewers.
Plus, so little of what happens in a courtroom is interesting (or entertaining) enough to justify any air time or newspaper space.
So it would be difficult to justify the installation of permanent cameras to shoot those few hours of newsworthy events that occur each month in a courtroom.
Illinois is fortunate to be able to draw on the experiences in Iowa, where cameras have been documenting legal proceedings inside courtrooms for 30 years.
JUDGE O’CONNOR noted that Sheley’s lawyer has suggested that cameras in the courtroom might not be “fair” to the defendant.
That means, presumably, that some kind of actual defense will be mounted in the Whiteside County cases.
In the Knox County trial, the defense produced no witnesses and introduced no evidence – hoping that ... who knows what the defense was hoping?
But in Whiteside County, the prosecution will rely more heavily on Sheley’s friends and family to support the narrative surrounding the killings. It’s reasonable to assume the defense will have some success in challenging the credibility of those witnesses, some of whom will bring their own criminal pasts to the witness stand.
Did the judge say he didn’t want this trial to become a “circus”?
That might be another challenge.
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