Subject: Please Fund Courtroom Live Streaming
I’m writing to ask that you support the $450,000 one-time funding request to enable live streaming of district court proceedings statewide.
Live streaming public court proceedings is a logical extension of the First and Sixth Amendments in a digital age. It expands access to justice, promotes transparency, and strengthens institutional trust.
The benefits of live streaming are many:
- Increased transparency. Provides public access to proceedings to those who cannot physically travel to the courthouse, reinforcing the judiciary’s legitimacy.
- Greater accountability/deterrence of misconduct. Judges, court personnel, prosecutors, defense counsel, and litigants tend to act more responsibly under public scrutiny Public visibility helps prevent abuses of discretion and encourages ethical conduct.
- Educational value. Allows students, journalists, and the general public to better understand courtroom procedures and legal reasoning.
- Equal access for all media. Prevents monopolization of access by legacy media outlets and offers a public-interest alternative to selective reporting.
- Preservation of the Record. High-quality video creates an unalterable and reviewable record for training, appeal, or audit.
- Civic Engagement. Fosters informed public discourse about the justice system.
There are many reasonable-sounding objections to live streaming, but in the almost ten years that I have been covering public court proceedings with UFLTV, I have yet to see any of them arise. Nevertheless, to address common objections to live streaming of public court proceedings:
Witness Intimidation. Courts already use protective measures (e.g., sealing, pseudonyms, closed sessions) to protect vulnerable witnesses. Live streams can be paused or restricted when needed.
Jury Contamination. Jury instructions, voir dire screening, and sequestration procedures already protect against outside influence. Live streams don’t create new risks—only new formats.
Privacy. Personal or sensitive information is already managed through redaction, sealing orders, and protective protocols. These safeguards are fully compatible with live streaming.
Grandstanding. Judges retain full control over courtroom decorum and can sanction performative behavior. Public visibility often reduces gamesmanship, not increases it.
Sensationalism. Unedited live streams help counteract misleading, out-of-context media soundbites. Full visibility is the antidote to distortion—not its cause.
Security risks. It is hard to imagine how live streaming could create new serious security problems or exacerbate existing ones, but security concerns can be addressed through case-by-case discretion, delayed broadcasts, and omission of identifying details. Technology does not override courtroom security protocols.
Technical glitches. There aren’t that many, and technical limitations are rapidly diminishing. Training, testing, and redundancies ensure reliability.
Unequal advocacy presentation. Courtrooms are not theater. A live stream reveals professional gaps that already exist—and highlights the need for (and thus encourages) correction, not exploitation. Real fairness comes from scrutiny, not concealment.
Threat to fair trials. How? Public trials have always been public; streaming merely extends that principle in the modern age. The possibility of unfair influence, if any, is mitigated by existing safeguards.
Judicial reluctance. Transparency is a democratic obligation, not a discretionary luxury. The apprehension a judge or commissioner might feel being subject to more scrutiny through live streaming is understandable but 1) certainly not a reason for less public access; and 2) fades with familiarity—as seen in jurisdictions that have already embraced live streaming.
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Utah prides itself on being a pioneer in making public court proceedings more accessible to the public (see UCJA Rule 4-401.01), and this is an opportunity for it to put its money where its mouth is.
If you have any questions about my experiences with live streaming and with making public court proceedings more accessible and accountable to the taxpaying public, I would be happy to answer or discuss them further.
Sincerely,
Utah Family Law TV (UFLTV)
801-450-0183
If you support live streaming of public court proceedings and want your representatives in the Utah State Legislature to support it, start by notifying the committee members. Here are their legislative email addresses:
bbrammer@le.utah.gov, mgwynn@le.utah.gov, mballard@le.utah.gov, kcullimore@le.utah.gov, lfillmore@le.utah.gov, wharper@le.utah.gov, dipson@le.utah.gov, derrinowens@le.utah.gov, spitcher@le.utah.gov, cacton@le.utah.gov, jburton@le.utah.gov, jdunnigan@le.utah.gov, karilisonbee@le.utah.gov, gmiller@le.utah.gov, angelaromero@le.utah.gov
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