WFTV, Inc. v. StateWFTV, Inc. v. State
GROSS, Judge.
This is a petition to review an order entered by the trial court prohibiting video and still camera operators from photographing prospective or seated jurors in the courtroom during a criminal trial.
In the underlying criminal trial, the defendant1 was charged with DUI manslaughter. On the day the trial was scheduled to begin, after sending the bailiff for the jury venire, the trial judge sua sponte instructed the cameramen as follows:
Let me address the members of the media, specifically the cameramen: You will not take pictures of the jury. You are welcome to stay in the courtroom as long as you maintain decorum, but you will not take pictures of the faces of the jury at any time during the trial. If I see that happening, or the bailiff, the camera will be removed from the courtroom. Okay.
Prior to the oral order, there had been no motion to restrict coverage of the trial, no prior notice to any news media organization,
This court has jurisdiction.
Electronic media and still photography coverage of a trial court proceeding is controlled by
Subject at all times to the authority of the presiding judge to: (i) control the conduct of proceedings before the court; (ii) ensure decorum and prevent distractions; and (iii) ensure the fair administration of justice in the pending cause, electronic media and still photography coverage of public judicial proceedings in the appellate and trial courts of this state shall be allowed in accordance with the following standards of conduct and technology promulgated by the Supreme Court of Florida.
In exercising the discretion accorded under the rule,
[t]he presiding judge may exclude electronic media coverage of a particular participant only upon a finding that such coverage will have a substantial effect upon the particular individual which would be qualitatively different from the effect on members of the public in general and such effect will be qualitatively different from coverage by other types of media.
See In re Post-Newsweek Stations of Florida, Inc., 370 So. 2d 764, 779 (Fla. 1979).
A precondition to an order excluding or limiting media coverage of a trial is a noticed evidentiary hearing at which media representatives have a fair opportunity to be heard. See State v. Green, 395 So. 2d 532, 538 (Fla. 1981); State v. Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc., 395 So. 2d 544, 548 (Fla. 1981).
The trial court‘s sua sponte order in this case was error, since the court neither held the properly noticed evidentiary hearing required under Green and Palm Beach Newspapers nor made the findings mandated by Post-Newsweek.
As to both this court‘s jurisdiction and the merits, the state argues that jurors are not “participants” in a trial within the meaning of either
We reject this argument because in the case shaping the parameters of electronic and still photography coverage of court proceedings, the supreme court treated jurors as a category of “participant” in the process. In Post-Newsweek, the court observed, under the subtitle “Privacy rights of participants,” that opponents of coverage contended that it was an invasion of privacy “to compel a witness or juror” to appear in a judicial proceeding and then “expose him against his will to the notoriety or publicity attendant to his image appearing in a newspaper, magazine, or television broadcast.” 370 So. 2d at 779. The court rejected this argument, commenting that a trial is, subject to limited exceptions, “a public event which by its very nature denies certain aspects of privacy.” Id. Similarly, the court considered and rejected the argument of electronic media opponents that
jurors will either be distracted from concentrating on the evidence and the issues to be decided by them or, because of their identification with the proceedings, they will fear for their personal safety, be subjected to influence by members of the public, or attempt to conform their verdict to community opinion.
Nothing in
We grant the petition for review and quash the trial court‘s oral order quoted above.
KLEIN, J., concurs.
FARMER, J., dissents with opinion.
FARMER, Judge, dissenting.
I dissent because I do not understand the trial judge‘s order directing the television coverage not to show the jurors to be an exclusion of the media from the proceeding. To my mind it is merely a matter of the trial judge exercising ordinary “control [of] the conduct of proceedings before the court.” See
Moreover, while I agree that a hearing would ordinarily be required to exclude television coverage entirely, I do not understand what a hearing in this case would involve. The television medium was present when the judge directed the cameras away from the jurors. The TV people did not suggest that they wanted to offer evidence at such a hearing to test the veracity of any non-testimonial data relied on by the judge in directing the cameras away from jurors, or to show what less restrictive measures might be available. See State v. Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc., 395 So. 2d 544, 548 (Fla. 1981) (evidentiary hearing should be allowed in all cases to elicit relevant facts to test the veracity of non-testimonial data, or to determine what less restrictive measures are available, when these matters are made an issue). There is nothing in this record showing that the TV representatives sought to make these matters an issue as to the direction of cameras away from jurors.
Finally, I cannot avoid observing that in recent highly publicized trials in California and Massachusetts, there were no television pictures of the jurors themselves. I simply cannot imagine any basis for challenging a trial judge‘s direction in a criminal case not to show the jurors on television. It seems to me one thing to exclude television coverage entirely; it seems quite another to preclude the media from showing the jurors during court proceedings. I side with the trial judge on this one.