Open up New York’s courts: Let in cameras so all can see

The criminal case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg against Daniel Penny for the killing of Jordan Neely on the subway 18 months ago is underway at the courthouse at 100 Centre St. downtown, beginning with jury selection

There is great public interest in this prosecution, but the public is limited to the available seats in the courtroom of the judge, Acting Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley.

It’s the similar limitation that the public faced with the Bragg prosecution of Donald Trump in the same courthouse (although then there was an overflow room, which was overfilled every single day and the multitude refused entry).

The solution is to follow the path of 49 other states and bring TV cameras into the courtroom. By tradition and by law, the courts and the trials are open to the public, so open them fully to the public.

But this is New York, where state law puts restrictions on audio and video transmission from trials, prohibiting “televising, broadcasting, or taking of motion pictures” whenever “the testimony of witnesses” is being taken. That includes audio recording, so there is no radio or internet streaming of the sounds.

But what it doesn’t include is everything else in the trial. Jury selection. Motion presentations and arguments. The judge’s decisions on motions and procedures such as scheduling. As for the trial action, the opening statements can be on TV. The same for the summations by the prosecution and defense. The judge’s jury instructions can be broadcast, as can the jury verdict. In a guilty verdict the sentencing, including any statement by the defendant, can also be on camera.

That is all within the authority of the individual judge, here Justice Wiley. He should make it happen, as should every judge in every case. The Legislature up in Albany also needs to change the law to get rid of the prohibition on filming witnesses. Every other state manages to allow that while maintaining safety for witnesses, protecting the rights of defendants and keeping decorum in the courtroom.

Even retrograde New York allowed full TV coverage of trials for a 10-year experiment from 1987 to 1997. The experiment was a success, but Albany lost the nerve.

What Wiley should also do, as was so helpful to the public understanding of the Trump trial, is to publish on the internet the court stenographer’s transcript from each day’s proceedings. The longstanding practice is that transcripts are restricted to those who will pay into the personal bank account of the government employee stenographers (who make around $130,000 a year) the hundreds of dollars for each day’s transcript.

The stenographers treat those vital public records as copyrighted material, trying to block the reproduction, publishing or copying of the transcripts. It’s a racket and the Legislature should put an end to it.

During the Trump trial, only after the intervention of New York State Chief Judge Rowan Wilson, did the state court system publish the daily transcripts on the internet, but removed them after two weeks, as that was apparently the agreement with the stenographer’s union.

Bring in the cameras and free the transcripts.