US Judiciary Weighs Exception To Ban On Broadcasting Federal Criminal Trials

A US judicial rulemaking panel is considering a limited exception to the longstanding ban on televising or broadcasting audio from federal criminal trials, which would allow victims to watch proceedings remotely.

 

The proposal was discussed at a meeting in Boston of the US Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules. Just two years ago, the committee rejected a request by media organisations to lift the ban more broadly.

 

Most state courts already permit televised trials. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, federal courts have also allowed remote audio access to civil and bankruptcy proceedings when testimony is not being taken.

 

However, the federal judiciary has maintained its restrictions on broadcasting criminal cases, which date back to 1946. In 2024, judges cited concerns about protecting the privacy of witnesses and jurors when deciding to retain the ban on cameras.

 

More recently, Senior US District Judge Michael Mosman of Oregon, who chairs the committee, appointed Mary Jo White, a partner at law firm Debevoise & Plimpton and a former chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, to lead a subcommittee examining a possible limited relaxation of the rules.

 

Last year, US District Judge Edmond Chang, based in Chicago, proposed amending the rules to allow victims and third-party custodians to watch criminal proceedings remotely during bail hearings.

 

Chang raised the issue after finding that he could not permit the mother of a victim who died of an overdose to listen to a sentencing hearing through a closed-circuit feed from Arizona, where she lived. Both the prosecution and the defence supported allowing her to attend remotely, but the rules prevented the arrangement.

 

Congress has twice authorised closed-circuit broadcasts of criminal proceedings to accommodate victims. The first measure, the 9/11 Victims Access Act of 2002, allowed victims to watch the case against Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in a US court in connection with al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, attacks.

 

Congress subsequently passed the Lockerbie Victims Access Act, enacted in 2024, allowing victims and family members to watch remotely the criminal proceedings scheduled for next year in Washington, DC, against a former Libyan intelligence operative accused of building the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.

 

White said the subcommittee planned to meet in November. It would also consider whether family members of defendants should be allowed to watch proceedings remotely.

 

The panel will examine possible restrictions on any new arrangement, including whether victims living outside the state where a trial is held would have to watch the proceedings from their local federal courthouse.

 

White, however, stressed that any proposed exception would have limits. The two earlier laws allowed judges to prohibit broadcasting altogether where necessary to protect a defendant’s right to a fair trial.