Trump trial vs. Karen Read case: What a difference a camera makes
It’s a tale of two trials — as different as different can be. And not just because the defendants are so different. Sure, the trial of a former president facing criminal fraud charges is a first. But it’s entirely likely that the Dedham trial of Karen Read, charged with the killing of her Boston police boyfriend, will attract nearly as much attention — including national attention — as People v. Trump.
On the one hand, it’s a case of sex, politics, and hush money for Donald Trump; on the other, a good old-fashioned murder mystery that Read’s lawyers hope to present to a jury, aided by the guerrilla theater of the notorious creator of the Turtleboy blog.
But the real difference?
The public will be getting its news of the Trump trial secondhand. Yes, it will be through the eyes of skilled journalists, trained to observe every movement, every twitch. But secondhand nonetheless because New York doesn’t allow cameras in courtrooms, unlike Massachusetts, which has allowed cameras in its courtrooms for nearly four decades.
And so each day as he appears in the courthouse, the former president gets to make his little speech to the cameras before entering the courtroom. Before court begins, still photographers are allowed in to get shots, as they did Tuesday when they captured Trump at the defense table looking grumpy enough to be worthy of a new edition of the last grumpy-face immortalized on a fund-raising T-shirt.
The rest was left to reporters, like this item from The Washington Post saying Trump appeared to have fallen asleep.
“Shortly after the lunch break, after the first batch of about 100 prospective jurors filed in and [Judge Juan] Merchan began to explain the process to them, Trump closed his eyes several times. He then abruptly caught himself and stiffened his posture,” Isaac Arnsdorf and Devlin Barrett wrote.
“His attorneys, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, refilled his drink and gave each other an awkward look at the defense table.”
You can almost hear the MAGA crowd saying, oh, sure, that’s a photo we’ll never have because it’s fake news.
The camera with its unblinking eye, of course, leaves little room for doubt.
And in a case like that being brought against Karen Read — a case in which it seems everyone in the town of Canton and most of the surrounding communities has an opinion — justice served up with a heavy dose of transparency is critical. It’s critical for the credibility of the judicial process. It’s important that no matter the outcome, people believe justice was done.
That camera in the courtroom — according to the media protocols set by Judge Beverly Cannone, there will be only one pooled broadcast or streaming camera and one still camera — will be key.
But even with the judge’s detailed pretrial ground rules, maintaining order will be no piece of cake.
Media representatives have long played by the rules about cameras — or suffered the consequences for any lapses. But there’s a growing phenomenon in Massachusetts courthouses of folks armed with cellphones and a cause deciding to play by their own set of rules.
It’s the kind of thing Cannone is trying to ward off — not just with her buffer zone for protesters and prohibition on “Free Karen” buttons and T-shirts in the courtroom but with a line in the sand anyone can understand. “The court prohibits any person from taking photographs, filming, recording, or broadcasting events occurring outside the courtroom in other areas of the courthouse.”
Keeping “order in the court” is an increasingly difficult job, as Cannone indicated in her opening remarks to prospective jurors Tuesday.
“John Adams said that we are a government of laws, not of men, and that the law must be deaf to the clamoring of the public,” she said. “He meant that while public opinion about a given subject may ebb and flow, the law must be steady, reliable, and evenhanded. We know that in the subject of this case, there are people advocating for one outcome or another with intensity but without the benefit of having heard or seen any evidence at all.”
Thanks to that unblinking camera eye, anyone with a TV or a computer will be able to see and hear that evidence without setting foot in the courtroom or depending on someone else’s interpretation.
And how unfortunate the same can’t be said of the case now unfolding in Manhattan.