TV Before the Bar

The world that watched TV's first live murder program may soon get to see the ensuing trial. The proceedings against Jack Ruby next February for the killing of Lee Oswald may be televised live at the discretion of Judge Joe Brantley Brown. Last week Judge Brown insisted he had made no decision, allowed as how "I was just fixin' to go deer hunting." Everyone else concerned was fixin' to fight.

At issue is the American Bar Association's recommended Canon 35 for the ethical conduct of trials, which flatly prohibits cameras of any kind. The rule has been adopted for all federal courts and the courts of every state except Texas and Colorado. Canon 35 was written in 1937 after the sensationalism of press coverage when Bruno Hauptmann was tried for kidnaping young Charles Lindbergh Jr. It is ironic that the canon has come up for debate again in one of the few cases since that has stirred nationwide emotion.

Billie Sol & Candy Barr. Freedom of the press demands that television cameras be allowed the same privileges as newspaper reporters, say the journalists and judges (usually elective) who publicly oppose Canon 35. They also claim that modern equipment can make television coverage unobtrusive, undamaging to decorum. Champions of Canon 35 deny both counts. Just like any other newsman, the television reporter is free to go into any courtroom without a camera, points out Lawyer John H. Yauch, chairman of the committee of the American Bar Association that carefully reviewed Canon 35 a year ago. It is the effects of cameras on jury, judge, lawyers, witnesses and defendant that the A.B.A. objects to. However inconspicuous, cameras turn the judicial process into show business. As a result, says Yauch, the defendant's right to a fair trial is jeopardized.

The danger is illustrated best by some of the more flamboyant episodes in the history of televised courtroom drama in Texas. When one Harry Washburn was tried and convicted in Waco for blowing up his ex-mother-in-law, one of his defense attorneys claimed that some witnesses were influenced by the testimony they soaked up from a beer-parlor TV set before being called themselves. When David Frank McKnight was tried and convicted in Amarillo for killing a crippled pawnbroker with a claw hammer, the judge permitted live coverage after the defendant signed a statement saying he had no objection; later it was learned that a local station had paid McKnight $ 1,000, which he turned over to the lawyer as part of the fee.

When Billie Sol Estes was tried in Tyler, his lawyers protested TV in vain; the first program opened with a biography of Judge Otis Dunagan. Sponsors included Campbell Soup, Simoniz, Reader's Digest, and the Dallas Morning News. When Stripper Candy Barr got 15 years for possession of one marijuana cigarette, the judge was none other than Deer Hunter Brown; the question in Dallas was how any juror could vote for acquittal when his wife had watched the curvesome defendant on TV.

Oswald & Ruby. Defense Attorney Tom Howard, originally reported in favor of TV coverage of Ruby's trial, last week changed his mind: "We don't want any circus-type trials. I'm firmly against it." Dallas Prosecuting Attorney Henry Wade agrees: "Witnesses will be sufficiently perturbed and excited without cameras staring them in the face. It appears to me that it would be difficult for Ruby or anyone else to get a fair trial." And at week's end in Chicago, the American Bar Association issued an angry denunciation of proposals to televise the Ruby trial. For good measure, the A.B.A. added a scathing attack on broadcasters and Dallas officials for their handling of Oswald.

"What occurred in Dallas struck at the heart of our fundamental rule of law," said the A.B.A. "The widespread publicizing of Oswald's alleged guilt, involving statements by officials and public disclosures of the details of 'evidence,' could conceivably have prevented any lawful trial of Oswald due to the difficulty of finding jurors who had not been prejudiced." As for the Ruby trial, said the A.B.A., "the judicial process must not be further impaired by additional sensationalism, which would inevitably result if television of the trial were permitted."

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