Opinion ID: 390302
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Rebroadcast as Enhanced Punishment

Text: 48 The district court placed great emphasis on the effect of publicity which rebroadcast would cause defendants. The court recognized that publicity was one of the unavoidable impacts of the criminal justice system upon persons whose activities subject them to criminal charges. The court then stated: 49 The greater and more widespread the publicity about a particular criminal case, the more likely it is that penalties not prescribed by the law will be visited upon the accused and, more importantly, upon innocent relatives and friends 50 Given the nature of our society these side effects are inevitable; indeed, it can be argued that they form an important, if unofficial, part of the sanctions imposed by society upon lawbreakers. The unfortunate fact is, however, that these side effects are not uniformly visited upon persons accused of violating the law. And, since they are not an official part of the criminal justice process, and are beyond the reach of that process, there is probably no acceptable way of ensuring uniformity of application. 51 501 F.Supp. at 860. 52 There are several distinct threads running through the district court's discussion which merit separate analysis. All of the courts which have considered applications for copying tapes have iterated that there are certain circumstances which juy denial of the application. Primarily, as noted by the Supreme Court, denial is justified to prevent court files from becoming a vehicle for improper purposes. Warner Communications, 435 U.S. at 598, 98 S.Ct. at 1312. The illustrations given by the Court of such improper purposes were use of records to gratify private spite or promote public scandal through publication of the painful and sometimes disgusting details of a divorce case; to facilitate distribution of libelous statements; and to harm a litigant's competitive standing by distribution of business information. Id. The Court's illustrations are most aptly directed to applications for initial access, since the attendant publicity following access by the press to the information cannot be prevented. See Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469, 491-497, 95 S.Ct. 1029, 1044-1047, 43 L.Ed.2d 328 (1975). 53 Even when initial access is unavoidable, as in the case of trial evidence, there are instances where the right to copy evidence already made public has been denied pursuant to the court's power to prevent use of evidence for improper purposes. For example, in In re Application of KSTP Television, 504 F.Supp. 360 (D.Minn. Dec. 1, 1980), the court denied the application of a television station to copy videotapes made by the defendant which recorded conversations and conduct preliminary to and anticipatory of his rape of one of his kidnapping victims. Although this evidence had been shown in the courtroom, and transcripts were furnished to the media, the court denied the application to permit copying of the tapes themselves because further broadcast would support sensationalism, would not serve the public interest, and would impinge upon the precious privacy rights of the unfortunate victim of the crime, and would lend the court's approval to the commercial exploitation of a voice and photographic display catering to prurient interests without proper public purpose or corresponding assurance of public benefit. Id., at 362 (footnote omitted). 54 We believe there is a vast difference between republication which would intensify the pain already inflicted on an innocent victim of a crime, as in the KSTP case, and the additional publicity which would affect defendants who are themselves charged with commission of a crime. In this case, particularly, when the defendants themselves were public figures and their conduct was already the subject of national publicity and comment, we find the district court's concerns about the incremental effect of rebroadcast publicity to be unconvincing. The glare of publicity that may follow rebroadcast of the activities of these defendants cannot be compared with that which might lead a court to shield children, victims of sex crimes, some informants, and even the very timid witness or party. Chandler v. Florida, -- U.S. --, --, 101 S.Ct. 802, 811, 66 L.Ed.2d 740 (1981). 55 Nor can we accept the court's strained analogy of rebroadcast to parading a convicted defendant through the streets, or holding him up to public ridicule by exhibiting him in a cage or in the stocks. 501 F.Supp. at 860. The application at issue seeks only to rebroadcast evidence actually introduced at trial which has already passed the trial court's scrutiny for relevance. In Chandler, the Supreme Court held that the television coverage of a criminal trial for public broadcasting over the defendant's objection does not per se violate the due process clause. Similarly, the publicity consequent to rebroadcast of some of the evidentiary material introduced at trial will not, in itself, violate accepted notions of the decent administration of justice. 56 Members of the criminal defense bar, amici in the Chandler case, presented an argument which proceeded on a basis similar to the enhanced punishment idea accepted by the district court in this case. They raised the concern that coverage of select cases singles out certain defendants and that the broadcasters' selection will be governed by such facts as the nature of the crime and the status and position of the accused. The Court stated that (t) he unanswered question whether electronic coverage will bring public humiliation upon the accused with such randomness that it will evoke due process concerns was far from trivial, but that the answer must await the continuing experimentation. Id. at --, 101 S.Ct. at 813. Rebroadcast on television of audio and videotapes of a trial already completed is far less likely than concurrent broadcast of trial proceedings to create a circus or stadium atmosphere. Therefore, without any evidence to the contrary, we believe that such rebroadcast cannot appropriately be considered to be enhanced punishment of the defendants. 8 57 No suggestion has been made in this case that the broadcasters are motivated by any improper purpose. While representatives of the media may not have any superior right to access than does the general public, they serve the public interest in communication of information. They have the facilities which will permit the dissemination of audio and videotape evidence to members of the public who were not present at the trial proceedings. The fact that there will be a congruence between information-receiving interests of the public and the commercial interests of the broadcasters in this instance does not thereby taint the broadcasters' request. See United States v. Mitchell, 551 F.2d at 1265. 58