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1st Judicial Circuit tweeks court rules journalists must follow
Feb 14, 2012 (Northwest Florida Daily News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Court administrators for Florida's First Judicial Circuit have updated rules the media and general public must adhere to when attending high profile court events.
Sheila Sims, chief deputy court administrator for the circuit, characterized the changes as "a little tweeking."
She said changes to existing policy will give courts in the four counties encompassed by the Judicial Circuit a reference point when cases become major media events.
"This is not meant to shake anybody up," she said. "This is not going to affect day-to-day operations."
But Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte, who argued Florida's first "cameras in the courtroom" case in 1977-78, said the First Judicial Circuit's 2012 policy raises some serious concerns.
"My hunch is if anybody takes an interest in this order it's not going to stand for very long," D'Alemberte said.
The Judicial Circuit's administrative order, signed by Chief Judge Terry Terrell, would allow a trial judge, "with the concurrence of the chief judge" to declare a proceeding to be of high profile or special interest.
Once a case is so designated, the circuit's court administrators for the impacted county would be called upon to serve as public information officers for the court and act as liaison between the court and the media.
Reporters interested in covering a high profile or special interest case will be required to provide 24-hour notice of their intention to do so.
Only one television camera, one still photographer and one audio system for radio broadcast will be allowed in the courtroom for the high profile case at any given time, under the new order.
A media committee will be set up to designate which reporters and photographers will be granted courtroom access. A "pool" arrangement will be established to share information, photos and film footage.
Members of the general public wanting to attend a court proceeding will be required to obtain passes, which will be handed out on a first-come, first served basis, the order said.
Veteran media law attorney Robert Rivas looked over the First Judicial Circuit's administrative order and said "it looks plain vanilla to me.
"I don't see anything that appears objectionable," he said.
D'Alemberte, however, found a few things troublesome.
He said he was troubled by the arbitrary method through which proceedings can be declared high profile or special interest cases.
"The idea a court administrator can declare this or that case of great interest and all of a sudden limit the public's ability to go into a courtroom," he said. "That's really an offensive issue."
He said he didn't like the notion of requiring media members to provide 24-hour notice of their intention to cover a trial or hearing. The Supreme Court has never sanctioned such notice requirements, he said.
"I doubt a local circuit judge can adopt a rule that conflicts with the Supreme Court rule," D'Alemberte said.
And he particularly despised the order's requirement that the general public sign up to attend court.
D'Alemberte noted that courtrooms were opened to the public long before any other function of American government.
"We just don't permit the closing of our courtrooms," he said. "The public is allowed to go into a courtroom whenever they want to," he said.
Sims, the court administrator, said most of the stipulations in the court's order can be found in the rules for judicial administration.
She said the judicial circuit administrators crafted their order in an effort to accommodate the media while balancing such things as courtroom occupancy levels, state fire codes and traffic flow through the circuit's courthouses.
Rivas said that rules like those in the First Judicial Circuit are fairly commonplace and court administrators "feel more comfortable that they have a rule in place."
He said in most cases the courts grant leeway as long as there aren't disruptions. Problems would only arise from his perspective, he said, "if someone tries to enforce it an in overly aggressive manner."
___ (c)2012 the Northwest Florida Daily News (Fort Walton Beach, Fla.) Visit
the Northwest Florida Daily News (Fort Walton Beach, Fla.) at
www.nwfdailynews.com Distributed by MCT Information Services
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