Federal Judge Apologizes For Breaking Federal Law–Apology Deemed Sufficient
I know, weird headline for a camera blog, right? Well, check this out–apparently federal court judge Joe Billy McDade of Peoria allowed cameras–both still and video–into his courtroom to cover a hearing about narrowing the achievement gap in Illinois schools between black and white students.
This is actually a violation of Federal law, but another judge in the circuit decided no charges would be necessary as Joe Billy’s apology would apparently be sufficient to make up for his violation of Federal law.
Never mind, of course, that any of us lowly serfs bringing a camera into court likely would have been at the very least fined, and definitely not allowed to get off with a mere apology. But Joe Billy had a good point–maybe it’s high time we started letting cameras in the courtroom. We already have sketch artists–there’s no functional difference between someone drawing scenes from a courtroom and someone photographing those same scenes.
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