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Appeals Court Says RIAA Hearing Can't Be Streamed
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has overturned a lower court order permitting webcast of an oral argument in an RIAA case, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, in Boston. As one commentator put it, the decision gives the RIAA permission to 'cower behind the same legal system they're using to pillory innocent people.' Ironically, the appeals court's own hearing had been webcast, via an mp3 file. The court admitted that this was not an appropriate case for a 'prerogative writ' of 'mandamus,' but claimed to have authority to issue a writ of 'advisory mandamus.' The opinion came as a bit of a surprise to me because the judges appeared, during the oral argument, to have a handle on the issues. The decision gave me no such impression. From where I sit, the decision was wrong in a number of respects, among them: (a) it contradicted the plain wording of the district court rule, (b) it ignored the First Amendment implications, and (c) there is no such thing as 'advisory' mandamus or 'advisory' anything — our federal courts are specifically precluded from giving advisory opinions."
Why do we keep trusting a dishonest Justice system. The system is rigged. There is no Justice in the Legal system none.
Your entire argument is without merit. It proceeds from the onset from a false premise.
By "broadcast", one presumes "what's actually happening" will be made transparently obvious.
No, because the actual proceedings in the courtroom are not the complete picture. Stipulations, preliminary motions, and other issues dispensed with would not be covered, nor would jury deliberations. You neglect entirely the fact that the bulk of public involvement with the broadcast would be presented through the media, which is the issue you're responding to.
Your markedly unparallel response speaks for itself. Undue media influence comes from the media's having the broadcast at their disposal.
Even today, the Court specifically orders jurors to ignore the media for exactly this reason.
An order not enforceable when the level and quantity of media presentation rises to this level. Look no further than the OJ trial.
I have to wonder how broadcast can possibly "contaminate" the jury
Think CNN "election night", but the subject matter is a courtroom proceeding. Pundits, soothsaying, lay "analysts", the entire parade of the court of public opinion. The unrestricted flow of amateur opinions, formed on nothing resembling legal proof or an understanding of the principles, issues, and factual disputes in play, quickly comes to exert undue influence.
here is one: the transcript alone doesn't record things like facial expressions of witnesses and so forth.
The jury was present to observe "things like facial expression". That's kind of the whole point of having a jury. They don't need a video to see what they can look at directly with their own eyes.
What the hell? No one puts anyone on the stand until they know exactly what they are going to say.
Trust me when I say you never know what a witness is going to say on the stand. You can only hope, prepare, and make your best selections. All of this occurs before trial. You cannot control what influences your witness between the last time you speak and the day they are called to testify. Given the opportunity to review the testimony of others and other proceedings in the trial, witnesses will have a unique and unprecedented way to change their testimony.
It's not hard to see at all, though you try your hardest to be ignorant of it. A witness, W2 listens to previous testimony by W1, and though you as the attorney are counting on the variation of the events by W2, W2 hears W1 and decides to revise her version of events to match more closely. The case is blown. Or you have a hostile witness who does not actually want to testify, who then arranges to contradict earlier testimony, equally blowing the case based on knowledge they're not supposed to have.
My guess is that courts do not want their proceedings broadcast live because it would regularly reveal just how dirty, illogical, and biased the entire apparatus really is.
A truly bizarre contention when you consider that the transcripts are all already available.
Most people never set foot in court,
Including quite plainly yourself.
The entire scheme is supported only by the unquestioned belief of these people that it is "fair" and "equitable", and any step that may give rise to concerns in this population about the administration of justice will be resisted by the administrators themselves: judges, lawyers, clerks, etc.
You're alleging an absolutely ludicrous conspiracy among clerks, court reporters, attorneys for both sides, defendants and parties found liable, jurors, judges, random members of the public present in the courtroom, bailiffs, members of the media, experts, and witnesses to defraud the public with sham proceedings. Not only is such massive coordination across millions of c
Good god, man. You are totally lost.
But you again ignore the fact that the jurors are present in the room: they have no need to watch the broadcast.
Who's talking about the jury watching the broadcast of the proceedings? Only you. I'm talking about the media coverage it would inevitably and uncontrollably spawn.
I guess it could, but you are the only one saying it would.
It's a foregone conclusion. No one has time to spend six to eight hours a day for several weeks listening to the sound of papers shuffle. You have no idea how incredibly boring a civil trial is.
In this case, if you have any doubts about what a witness might say, you simply won't call them. Any deviations from what they said before trial and what they say on the stand, you do as you are doing to me: you attack, you misrepresent, you dismiss, whatever it takes to render the testimony moot to both sides.
You've missed the point entirely for the second time now. You don't always have the option to do those things and still present your case. There is no weighing to be done that makes a delay of a few weeks worth more than having witnesses destroy any chance at a fair trial. You pretend to care about fairness, making idiotic claims out of nothing more than pure ignorance of what actually happens in a real courtroom, and you take a point saying that we should embrace a policy that permits unprecedented levels of witness misconduct and simply roll with it. That's one of the biggest "fuck you" to a fair trial you can give, short of issuing the decision in advance of the arguments.
For stiff fees, of course.
Not really, no.
2. easy and widespread access to the system would make this transparently obvious
There already is easy and widespread access to the system. You can walk into just about any courtroom. The media can report on any ongoing trial. The parties are free to talk to the media afterward. You're free to view the entire transcripts and records afterward. Broadcasting the actual trial in its entirety doesn't do a damn thing to improve access; if anything, it hinders it--people simply don't have the capacity to listen to weeks of testimony if they're not involved.
3. and that permitting the exposure of said flaws is not in the system's interest
And again, there is no shortage of opportunities to expose "said flaws". A live broadcast certainly wouldn't make them more apparent, unless the flaw you speak of is the plodding pace of trials and the inefficiency of linguistic communication. In order for the existing system to conceal these grave problems, you'd need a conspiracy beyond that which humans are capable of.
It's call an "index".
You can't index a live broadcast in any meaningful sense.
You're either trolling or an idiot. Either way, you're just making yourself look bad at this point.
To take an example of a flaw from Mr. Matticus himself:
CognitiveResonance foot in mouth, take four.
When W2 hears W1's testimony, maybe it will trigger more accurate testimony on his part.
No. The reliability of the witness' testimony must be based on his own memory and perception; the means for establishing accuracy are encapsulated in the rules of evidence. There is no way to add impermissible hearsay into the mix and still sort those things out. It's no long that witness testifying on his knowledge and memory. It's a weird pastiche that lacks all the indicia of reliability that ensure a fair trial (remember that thing you pretend to care about?) Moreover, it is sometimes strategically important to put a witness on the stand because their testimony is inaccurate.
W1 and W2 are to testify on the same day.
One witness may well take several days to complete his or her testimony. There goes that idea. Thanks for playing.
W1 and W2 are sequestered at The Ritz, and paid handsomely for the inconvenience
There's no money for that (but let me guess, you're going to continue to complain about the costs of court systems either way), and short of tossing them in jail, there's no guarantee of successful isolation. Thanks for playing.
W1 and W2 submit written testimony in advance; query them in open court only if necessary (this is essentially what happens today)
That's not how it works, sparky. If they're being called as witnesses, it's because they're needed to testify directly. Thanks for playing. Strike three, you're out.
They do not address the far deeper problem: that the current justice system places far too much weight on eye witness testimony.
Who said anything about eyewitness testimony? 'Witness' doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.
if mere public exposure can work to make such evidence worthless -- "case is blown" -- well, just how good is that evidence in the first place?
Oh, the intellectual dishonesty! Public exposure doesn't make the evidence worthless. Public exposure of witness testimony to future witnesses makes the future testimony suspect. The evidence in isolation is perfectly fine, with all the normal indicia of reliability and all the normal caveats. It's the breakdown of the isolation that is the problem and that directly interferes with the fairness of the trial. But obviously that's not something that's in fact relevant to you, because you can't come up with a single plausible reason why broadcasting live proceedings would actually make anything more "fair".
The "legal system" has pooled together to ban broadcasts to cover up "serious flaws"...for a few weeks? Please.
There are already members of the public in the courtroom, sitting quietly in the back. There's already a publicly accessible record of the proceedings. The public, by design, has no role to play in an active trial. There's no attack on the integrity or fairness of the trial you can make and support that would be solved by broadcasting it.
Basically, Mr. Matticus, you need to begin questioning the basis of your beloved legal system.
Basically, you need to learn about the legal system before issuing your ignorant and fallacious proclamations. Blind questioning of the "basis" with no knowledge is not a fruitful exercise. There are very real problems that need to be addressed, but as someone who clearly doesn't know a thing about the reality of the legal system, you've shown zero ability to identify them.