Celebrating the 30th anniversary of cameras in the courts.

• Author: White, John G., III
• Position: Florida - President's page

More than 80 satellite trucks wrapped around Tallahassee's Capitol Complex. Inside the Florida Supreme Courtroom, four permanently installed robotically operated cameras were ready to feed live video to the world's major news networks.

At 10 a.m., on December 7, 2000, oral arguments would begin as justices and lawyers delved into Vice President Al Gore's request to recount disputed votes.

In living rooms and offices across the globe, millions sat down to watch historical gavel-to-gavel oral arguments broadcast live on all major networks, just as they had on November 20, 2000, in a separate appeal arising from the 2000 presidential election dispute.

"It is nearly impossible to imagine a court news story bigger than this, nor one in which broad worldwide transparency was achieved by court officials rigorously managing and sincerely cooperating with the media," Craig Waters, the high court's public information officer flung into the international spotlight, wrote in an academic paper, "Technological Transparency: Appellate Court and Media Relations After Bush v. Gore."

As the dispute played out in various venues around the state, international and national reporters gathered in Tallahassee were amazed that every court hearing allowed cameras to roll.

In a case in which everyone in the country had a stake in the outcome and spectators worldwide waited for finality, Florida's pioneering spirit regarding cameras in the courts was put to the ultimate test. And Florida passed with flying colors.

"The great lesson of the 2000 election situation was that everyone, from the beginning to the end, accepted that the issues of that election were going to be resolved in the courts and not in the streets," said Charles Wells, chief justice in 2000.

A big part of that acceptance was derived from a global audience receiving unfiltered, accurate information in real time that only cameras in the courtroom could bring.

Join me in celebrating the 30th anniversary of Florida's adoption of Fla. R. Jud. Admin. 2.170, Standards of Conduct and Technology Governing Electronic Media and Still Photography Coverage of Judicial Proceedings, (renumbered as 2.450 in 2006) that created the nation's broadest rule allowing cameras into courtrooms.

Thirty years ago, the presumption was created that cameras were permitted in courtrooms, without requiring permission from parties or the judge, as long as minimum standards were followed.

Two years later, in 1981, the Florida rule...