1989-03-24 Comments of Star Tribune.pdf - Minnesota Judicial Branch

The research is documented in the previous five sections of
this report with data analysis occurring in Sections III and
IV. Section I provides an historical and contextual perspec-
tive for California's experiment with EMC of court proceedings.
The basic purpose of the evaluation of the experiment is set
forth along with a review of prior reserach on the "cameras
in the courtroom" issue. A summary of the Rules of Court
governing California's experiment (980.2 and 980.3) completes '
Section I. Section 11 documents in some detail the evaluation
research .design. Sections III, IV, and V are summarized below.
1. Factual Summary' of the Experimental Year
Section III of this report presents factual information
about the one year experimental period (July 1, 1980-
June 30, 1981). Request record data and descriptive
analysis from evaluation data(interviews and observa- ,
tions) produced this body of f.actual knowledge.
The requirement that the media notify the evaluators
of EMC requests provided a means of measuring the
volume and characteristics of EMC activity for the
one year time period. The following statements sum-
marize the pertinent findings emerging from the factual
analysis.
l .About 350 requests were submitted to the courts
and just over 200 of these subsequently resulted
in an EMC event.
l The requirement in the first seven months of the
experiment that party consent to EMC in criminal
trial level proceedings be obtained resulted in
little criminal case EMC activity. The removal
0'3 the party consent requirement resulted in a
sharp increase in EMC criminal case activity.
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