Book Review: Crime and Justice in the Age of Court TV

• Author: Susan R. Takata
• Published date: 01 December 2006
• Date: 01 December 2006
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734016806295593
• Subject Matter: Articles

that outside influences may easily seep into and damage or alter the justice process; they

exemplify this with the Simpson case.

Chapters 7 and 8 navigate through the states’ and the federal courts’ experiences with

televised trials. Chapter 7 concentrates on the Texas, Florida, and California experiences

because cases from these states have generated the leading guidance for televised trials over

the years, for better or worse regardless of one’s viewpoint. Both chapters expound upon

the results of various experiments with television cameras and delve deeper into the cases

that shaped the current protocol in various jurisdictions. Chapter 8 further discusses the pol-

itics and personal aversions behind the federal and Supreme Court’s holdout on including

television as a normal part of everyday trials in the face of successful experiments in fed-

eral jurisdictions.

Chapter 9 explores the benefits and problems brought about by the for-profit network

Court TV. The authors interview major players of the network, as well as critics, to expose

the public service performed by the network as well as its most severe inherent flaws. Within

the text, it is suggested that a public television perspective, such as that taken by C-SPAN,

will placate many of the cynics’ most harsh criticisms—a point taken up in the final chapter.

Chapter 10 offers a layman’s summary of the available remedies that judges utilize to

ameliorate the problems caused by heavy media publicity and their individual viability to

have an actual impact on a publicized trial. The authors sum up the debate and the book

with chapter 11, in which they suggest policy changes and sound advice to reconcile the

advocates on both sides of the television dispute.

The simplistic language of some very dynamic issues makes these content-rich chapters

very easy to follow and assess. Also, it is worthy to note that the background of the authors,

a criminal defense attorney and a journalist, serves to keep the text balanced as well as unveil

a vast spectrum of strengths and weaknesses on both sides of the debate without selective

memory. The text is a quick and fascinating read and will serve to generate terrific discus-

sions if used in undergraduate seminars. For academics and practitioners, this text will allow

for a brief introduction to the leading pertinent issues of televised trials. However, other

options are available for those who want a deeper assessment of this timely issue.

David N. Khey

University of Florida, Gainesville

Nasheri, H. (2002). Crime and Justice in the Age of Court TV. NewYork: LFB Scholarly

Publishing.

DOI: 10.1177/0734016806295593

To televise or not to televise inside the courtroom? That is the question, and the focus of

Hedieh Nasheri’s book Crime and Justice in the Age of Court TV. According to Nasheri, her

book is “intended to serve as a reference source [italics added] on the topic of televised trials”

(p. vii). This very short 130-page book (with an additional 89 pages of appendices) is a simple,

straightforward presentation of television inside the courtroom. But this issue can change

quickly; for example, as the author points out in her preface, much attention was given to the

trial of Zacarias Moussaoui while her book was nearing completion (the lag time between writ-

ing a manuscript and its publication, not to mention when the book is reviewed).

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