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October 14, 2005
On a Totally Different Topic: High Profile Trials
I just returned from three days in Reno. No, I wasn't there to gamble (though I did put twenty bucks down on the Clippers to take it all next season...) I was invited to participate in a high profile conference on high profile trials at the National Conference on Courts and the Media at the National Judicial College. The conference was called "From O.J. to Martha to Michael: What Have We Learned About the Conduct and Coverage of Trials?"
The list of participants was impressive. Name any high profile trial over the past decade and in that conference room you'd find the judge, prosecutor or defense attorney from that trial. Also present were a few of us members of the news media.
The purpose of the conference was clear: to discuss what has changed since the days when I was covering the Simpson/Goldman murder trial. Here in Los Angeles, journalists have complained that it has become extremely difficult for both broadcast and print media to do their job. There hasn't been a camera in the courtroom of a high profile trial in LA County in a decade. Documents are regularly sealed. Lawyers are gagged. And journalists complained mightily to the judges and lawyers at this Reno meeting of legal minds that these restrictions aren't limited to high profile cases; they are becoming the norm rather than the exception.
But one meta-topic emerged quite apart from the stated purpose of the conference.
Defense attorney M. Gerald Schwartzbach, a member of the Robert Blake defense team, was one of many legal eagles who expressed concern about the administration of justice on the federal level in the post-9/11 world. Schwartzbach said restrictions on information in criminal cases makes it easier for the federal government to shut the door on information about those arrested on terrorism charges. His Patrick Henry quote was, "I'd rather die in a free society than die in a totalitarian one."
That was his opinion, shared by many of the lawyers and judges at this conference. What's yours?
Posted by Kitty Felde at 10:45 PM
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Is this the First Ammendment BLOG you referenced?
Or is there more?
Posted by: atrimpi on October 14, 2005 03:58 PM
