Any trial can avoid becoming a media circus, at least inside the courtroom. With a good judge and a well-selected jury you can get by all that. David Saxe agrees. He is a former trial judge in civil and criminal courts who now sits on the State Appellate Division bench in New York County. He has presided over several televised trials and believes they are good for the judicial process as well as the public's right to know.
Judges tend to be more careful when there's a camera in the court.
They are more courteous and more considered in their rulings. When a judge knows he or she is being looked at perhaps by a vast audience, that judge is certain to be extremely careful in controlling the court's demeanor. Murders, divorces, assaults on women are parts of the way people live. These trials should be seen on television. There's no doubt that a vast audience would have tuned in if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed cameras to televise the arguments about Florida's presidential election.