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Cameras in the courtroom

Greta Garbo was scarcely more reclusive than the camera-phobic justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. As Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., remarked to Chief Justice-nominee John G. Roberts Jr., "If you are confirmed, you will essentially disappear from public view. This hearing will, in some ways, be the last time that the nation will see you at work."

Regrettable, but probably true. Though Roberts was noncommittal in response to Feingold's lobbying, the chief justice he is succeeding was hardly the only sworn opponent of cameras in the Supreme Court. Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O'Conner, Stephen Breyer and David Souter have pronounced themselves to be as obdurate as the late William Rehnquist was. Souter, for one, declared, "The day you see a camera come into our courtroom, it's going to roll over my dead body."

With all due respect, it's not their courtroom. It's the public's courtroom. The American people have as much right to see what goes on there as to see it in Congress and in the courts of the 50 states, all of which permit photojournalism to at least some degree. Forty-four allow it in the appellate courts, where the possible influence on witnesses and jurors is moot.

The best efforts of the media are no substitute for allowing the public to see for itself how their government works. The more seen, the more that is understood. The more the public saw of Roberts, the more they liked him. It would be ironic if he forgot that lesson.

[Last modified October 4, 2005, 02:15:30]