Tweets barred from courts?
Maryland authorities are considering banning all cell phones from court houses that would prevent people from tweeting or posting trial information on line. As it stands now, court houses have different rules.
I can understand how tweeting from inside a court room is distracting, but banning the practice throughout the courhouse stymies the free flow of information for both journalists and the public. People used Twitter and other social media to keep up with the Dixon trial, for example.
The old images out of The Front Page when reporters raced from courtrooms to pay phones to call in breaking news of verdicts has been replaced by new technology. Courts have historically been slow to embrace new means of communication, and banning Twittering smacks of having a free speech issue.
As Ron Sylvester, a reporter from Kansas who has spent two years Tweeting from trials, told the Baltimore Sun's Tricia Bishop: "Twitter now has broadened your public square to the rest of the world."
The court system needs to find a way to expand public participation, not stop it. Here's a bit more from Tricia's story:
Most individual courts make their own rules when it comes to electronic media. The policies are put in place piecemeal, and they vary widely, often according to the technological sophistication of the rule makers.
"There's a great potential to confuse the public," said Gene Policinski, executive director of the First Amendment Center in Tennessee.
A federal court in New York's Southern District, for example, recently added laptops to its list of banned devices, though attorneys can take them in with a court order. But a Boulder, Colo., federal judge last year allowed blogging and tweeting from her courtroom during a high-profile child abuse trial. And a Boston U.S. District Court judge was willing to Webcast a trial in April, though an appeals court vetoed the plan.
Meanwhile, in Howard County, state courts won't even let visitors have cell phones.
"The courts are going to have to decide at some point ultimately is the system going to be open, and are we past the era when this would be an intrusive" thing, Policinski said. "This is really all about balancing the right of the public to know what's going on in the courts versus the right of the public to have a fair trial. Those ought to be the considerations."
Categories: Courts and the justice system
Comments
Members of the Baltimore judiciary need education. Closing the courts to the public & trying to shut down dissemination of information is about one of two things:
1. Judges think they are so important and omniscient that only their 'chosen ones' are allowed to peak behind the curtain. OR 2. They are scared of what they don't know. I refuse to believe it is the first. I know too many fine jurists. So, it must be the fear. Their fear is driving the closure of courts to the public. But it ultimately leads to an erosion of right to a fair trial and impartial justice. Technology is pervasive. It is not just a communication system or transmission device, it is at the heart of many cases. For example, class action against Google from Buzz. More and more cases involve e-discovery, more evidence is happening electronically. The Baltimore judiciary cannot bury its head in the sand. Technology & social media are a part life. You can't shut life and society out of the courtroom. Let the sunshine in.
Posted by: Lyn Tolan | February 23, 2010 11:25 AM