Remember Televised Trials?

The days when America gathered around the TV set to watch celebrities like O.J. Simpson on trial now seem as distant as Father Knows Best. The Michael Jackson case is the latest in a long string of recent high-profile cases--Martha Stewart, Scott Peterson, Kobe Bryant, Robert Blake, Bernie Ebbers and more--in which cameras have been banned or severely restricted. So desperate is TV for at least a semblance of in-court coverage that the E! cable channel is planning to air daily re-enactments, with actors playing Jackson, the lawyers and the witnesses.

What happened to the once seemingly inexorable march of cameras into the courtroom? The answer, most trial watchers agree, boils down to two initials: O.J. His obsessively covered 1995 trial--and the subsequent criticism of Judge Lance Ito's handling of the proceedings--has made nearly every judge presiding over a high-profile case opt for the safer, camera-free route. (One of the few recent exceptions: the sexual-abuse trial of former priest Paul Shanley.) Longtime proponents of TV in court haven't given up the fight. Henry Schleiff, CEO of Court TV (which is pursuing a lawsuit seeking to end New York State's ban on cameras in the courtroom during trials), maintains that TV has been unfairly blamed for the "circuslike" atmosphere at some trials. "Cameras only show the circus," he contends. "They don't create the circus." Ted Poe, a former Texas criminal-court judge and now a Republican Congressman, is another advocate. "The argument that cameras are intrusive and could somehow affect someone's testimony is bogus," he says. "Once [judges] find out the sky won't fall when a trial is televised, they will be more supportive of the idea." Yet the issue for judges in high-profile cases--the kind that get saturation coverage on cable and the nightly entertainment shows--is not how cameras may affect the trial but rather how the proceedings will be judged by the public. Look at what happened to Judge Ito. --By Richard Zoglin. With reporting by Logan Orlando