Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > 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 a defendant his DUE PROCESS rights. But the Court changed its mind in the 1981 case of Chandler v. Florida, 449 U.S. 560, 101 S. Ct. 802, 66 L. Ed. 2d 740. Reacting to the...