Thursday, December 3, 2009
No Repeat of O.J. Trial for BART Cop
Crime Robert Gammon — Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 10:17 AM
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It’s widely accepted that the media circus surrounding the 1995 murder trial of O.J. Simpson in Los Angeles intensified when Judge Lance Ito allowed the case to be televised. The conventional wisdom is that the resulting “observer effect,” in which the outcome of an event is changed by the fact that it was observed, affected the judge, the attorneys, and the jury. But that apparently won’t be an issue in the murder trial of ex-BART cop Johannes Mehserle, because the Los Angeles judge overseeing the case has banned cameras in his courtroom, the Chron reports.
Judge Robert Perry, a former federal prosecutor known as a no-nonsense judge, doesn’t want to fuel more publicity in the case involving the homicide of BART passenger Oscar Grant last New Year’s. The case was moved to downtown LA after an Alameda County judge ruled that Mehserle couldn’t get a fair trial in the East Bay because of pretrial publicity. According to the Chron, jurors for the case will be drawn from a twenty-mile radius around the courthouse.
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An interesting book, "Anatomy of a Trial" published about a year ago by University of Missouri Press, tells what went on behind the scenes in the O.J. trial, how the media shaped public opinion and how to avoid courtroom circuses.
I agree with Jannyr: Anatomy of a Trial is a must read for those interested in trials, television in the courtroom, the role of the media and the importance of our justice system. It also paints Judge Ito in a much different light than other observers who parrot apparent truisms without much thought or analysis. It is said Ito agreed to the television cameras because he thought it would show the process was thorough and fair. He was....the jury, however.........
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