In other areas, the chief judge:
• Backed a legislative proposal to allow audiovisual coverage of all courtroom proceedings with the stipulation that the presiding judge agrees and that the facial features of parties or witnesses who object to the presence of cameras be obscured.
Lippman said he hoped his proposal would renew a "robust public dialogue" on cameras in the courtroom that has been dormant in recent years.
Following his speech, the chief judge said it has been 17 years since the televised O.J. Simpson murder trial in California but that critics in New York continued to be "traumatized" by the excesses of that trial.
"We have to educate people about the critical work that goes on in the courts," Lippman said. "They have a right to know about it."
In the past, opposition to cameras has chiefly come from Democrats who control the Assembly, and they seemed to remain in opposition yesterday.
"I haven't heard anything different that we heard 10 years ago, as far as that goes," Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, a cameras-in-the-courtroom opponent, said yesterday.
Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein, a Brooklyn Democrat who chairs the Assembly's Judiciary Committee, said advocates for crime victims and witnesses have not been satisfied in the past by protecting their identities on camera through the use of "blue dots" or other methods of obscuring their faces.
"We have to dust off those files and look at it again," said Weinstein, who also attended Lippman's address.
• Pointed out that the Administrative Board of the Courts has adopted recommendations by his Task Force to Expand Access to Civil Legal Services to change the aspirational goal for lawyers to provide 50 hours of pro bono service a year instead of 20 (NYLJ, Dec. 7, 2012).
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Avon
The previous commenter has a bit of homework to do!
- Better read the US Constitution before proposing that anyone charged with a violent crime be automatically denied bail. We had a Revolution against the tyranny of a kingdom that presumed folks guilty til proven innocent. Let's not go there now.
- Better read the NY Constitution before proposing that the Chief Judge dictate laws about police procedure. (I personally doubt that Lippman would be silent for even two seconds if a case on videotaping all interrogations and police stops actually did come before the Court.)
- And we'd all probably better read the proposal that "'low-cost' guidance from qualified non-attorneys on simpler legal matters" be allowed. Guidance on simple matters is not necessarily legal advice. Helping someone do the Small Claims Court process is pretty common, and there ought to be more help like that out there. Let's see what the plan is before we decide how wrong it is, or isn't!
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Michael
Great...so now, in addition to the 'numerous arrests as a juevenile' we get to read about career criminals, we get the joy of having even more career criminals ROR'd or released with little bail? Guess it would make too much sense to simply say, anyone charged with a violent crime will not be afforded bail? And now, non-attorneys can give legal advice? Makes as much sense as requiring pro bono work, from students who aren't even attorneys yet. Lawyers protecting each other....even when they are old-as-dirt judges. Amazing how SILENT Judge Limpman has been on videotaping ALL INTERROGATIONS and utilizing DASH CAMS in police cars (guess irrefutable proof of guilt/innocence would take a lot of money from judicial coffers, huh?). At least his genius arse called the extra-judicial interviews in Queens Central Booking unconstitutional...oh wait, he didn't do that either. Seems these dopey judges prefer endangering the citizenry, with all the loopholes and tricks they are using to release EVEN MORE CAREER CRIMINALS back onto the streets. Bet if they lived next to the Judge, he would not do such inanity.
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