Live Justice Comes To the Internet 85
Hugh Pickens writes "The Boston Globe reports that an experiment in live justice is coming to the Internet, uniting citizen bloggers with the public's right to know in one of Massachusetts's busiest courthouses, Quincy District Court. Dubbed Open Court, the project will operate live cameras and microphones during criminal sessions where the court's proceedings will be streamed live over the Internet at the Open Court website to give the public an unfiltered view of court proceedings while an operating Wi-Fi network serves citizen bloggers who want to post to the Internet. 'The idea is that people can live blog, but they can also tweet,' says John Davidow, executive editor in charge of new media at WBUR, who developed the idea for the project, adding that during the next year, the goal is to move the experiment outside the first session courtroom and to stream criminal and civil trials and small claims cases as well. The project was seeking a busy court and found it in Quincy, where last year the court handled more than 7,000 criminal claims and more than 15,000 civil cases, including more than 1,100 restraining orders, nearly 1,000 substance abuse and mental health cases and more than 1,200 landlord-tenant cases."
Re:Hooray! (Score:2, Informative)
I don't know where you live in the uncivilized parts of the world, but the average citizen could always enter a court and watch a trial. Both in Canada and the US. This to me seems simply like an extension of that. The only difference is, the chances of having a chat with the judge before they go on break seems pretty slim with this. But who knows, maybe they'll add a Q&A session at the end of the day.
Where I live(canada), justices and jp's regularly take questions from the gallery on the current state of law and decisions.
Re:Do We Really Want This? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Do We Really Want This? (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, sure. And records can be sealed or expunged later. In reality, once it gets into a private company's database in the US, even if the defendant wins, even if there is a prohibition, certainly if the record is later expunged, it's in the database. The private companies often pick up the court filings daily or weekly, and pay local courts for the privilege-- with no privacy laws to prevent it, the only recourse is to sue, and a poor bloke with little or no education, in fact anyone but the very privileged, are simply "screwed."
The NYT carried an article today about how the credit bureaus keep "VIP" lists of judges and politicians, correcting errors in their credit reports immediately-- while average citizens often spends years trying to correct mistakes, while they are denied credit, loans, leases (for rental property etc.) and even jobs as a result. It's unbelievable and unconscionable, but what the United States has become. I'm glad to have the opportunity to exit whenever I wish.