DOWNTIME FOR COURT TV

"There is an absolute likelihood that broadcast coverage in the courtroom would interfere with the due process of this trial and pose a risk to this case." With those words, Circuit Judge William Howard called a five-minute recess so that cameras could be removed from the courtroom inthe murder trial of Susan Smith.The judge agreed with Smith attorney David Bruck's assertion that thewitnesses from in and around Smith's hometown of Union, S.C.might be intimidated by the cameras. Court TV head Steven Brill said he would not appeal the ruling, possibly because the O.J. Simpson trial will keep their cameras rolling into the indeterminate future.

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
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