Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> Lawbeat

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

Legal News

: Lawbeat

Camera ban = pen ban = eyesight ban?

By Mark Obbie

ADVERTISEMENTS

A holiday gift idea for the court that has everything: those memory-erasing flashy things from Men in Black. Evidently a D.C. Circuit panel could have used one last week when its attempt to control news from its court was foiled by an artist with a good memory. Thanks to this post by Mike Scarcella at the Blog of Legal Times, we learn that longtime sketch artist Bill Hennessy, Jr., tried to cover arguments in a noteworthy Guantanamo-detainee case, and was barred by court clerk Marilyn Sargent from entering court with his drawing tools. So he returned with only an ordinary pad, on which he noted descriptions that he later used -- with that memory of his -- to draw the scenes, one of which Fox News bought and used. Scarcella writes:

The panel judges—or at least one member—apparently were not pleased after seeing Hennessy’s sketch. Sargent called Hennessy the next day to express the dismay of the panel. “I was baffled. I didn’t get it,” Hennessy says. “That starts to weigh into the right of free expression.”

Starts? I'll say. We don't know Sargent's side of the story, or whether all three of the judges -- A. Raymond Randolph, Karen LeCraft Henderson, and Judith Rogers -- concurred in the decision to control what members of the public may do with their hands while observing the public's business. But we do know that this is what happens when courtroom access policies are left to judges' whims.

Full post as published by Lawbeat on December 03, 2008 (boomark / email).