editorials

Courtroom dramas have been a television staple since "Perry Mason." But for Americans who are seeking information, not entertainment, about the workings of the third branch of government, TV screenplays are no substitute for the real thing.

That opportunity is lacking in most instances in Minnesota trial courts. In fact, this state ranks among the 15 most restrictive in the country in courtroom video access. Most states allow appellate court proceedings to be televised. But the pacesetter for all judicial matters in the country, the U.S. Supreme Court, remains reluctant to broadcast all of its approximately 75 hour-long oral argument sessions per year. It has released audio recordings of selected cases on request by the government affairs cable channel C-SPAN since 2000, but has refused to permit cameras in its courtroom.

"The court system in the years ahead must be more accessible than ever for our citizens," Magnuson said. That view recognizes the reality that the courts do the public's business, and the public increasingly expects its business to be available in video, audio and print formats, on demand on the web.

• U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., announced his intention to make broadcast coverage of Supreme Court oral arguments a topic in the nomination hearings for justice-designee Sonia Sotomayor. The justice whose seat she would fill, David Souter, was an outspoken opponent of TV coverage. Specter said that Souter's retirement presents an opportunity to reconsider the issue.

In so doing, he's likely to have an ally in Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. The former Hennepin County chief prosecutor said that while she has some qualms about televising trial court proceedings, she believes all appellate courts, including the highest one in the land, should welcome cameras.

In a letter to Sotomayor, Specter quoted the man who was president 100 years ago, William Howard Taft, who went on to serve as chief justice. "Nothing tends more to render judges careful in their decision and anxiously solicitous to do exact justice than the consciousness that every act of theirs is subject to the intelligent scrutiny of their fellow men and to candid criticism." As a branch of democratic government, the courts have an obligation to make themselves available for scrutiny. The more they do so, the better the chance that the people's inevitable "candid criticism" will also be intelligent.