Trump's trial should be televised

A safeguard against the certainty of Trump's lies about each day's proceedings

O.J. Simpson’s famous murder trial was televised.

President Bill Clinton’s testimony before a federal grand jury investigating Monicagate was videotaped and shown to the public.

The televised Watergate hearings featuring live witnesses and cross-examination was pivotal to widespread public support for President Richard Nixon’s ouster in 1974 despite his landslide re-election only two years earlier.

The United States Supreme Court in Chandler v. Florida (1981) sustained the constitutionality of televised criminal prosecutions.

During the 42 years that have elapsed since Chandler, no evidence has surfaced suggesting that television compromises the fairness or integrity of criminal prosecutions by altering the behavior of witnesses, lawyers, or judges.

So why shouldn’t Trump’s hush-money prosecution in a New York trial court be televised? The arguments in favor are overwhelming. Television would enable the American people to make their own independence evaluations of the fairness of the trail and the weight of the evidence without the distortions of biased intercessors who attend in person. As Britain’s Lord Hewart famously observed, “it is of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.”

Moreover, Mr. Trump is an incorrigible liar. He will misrepresent directly or through his dwindling legions of sycophants what transpires during the trial, including testimonies, without the deterrent of television that can immediately and conclusively expose the lies. In this context, television is a matter of public safety to prevent the risk of a second edition of the January 6th attack on the Capitol by Trump’s myrmidons.

But there is a legal glitch. The Supreme Court has declined to hold that the public is constitutionally entitled to televised criminal prosecutions under the First Amendment, although it held in Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia (1980) that the Amendment creates a right to attend in person.

At present, New York is the sole state in the union with a categorical bar on cameras in the courtroom. That can change at any time with action by the New York state legislature. State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal has introduced a bill to authorize televising court proceedings. The Democratic Party in New York controls both chambers of the state legislature and the office of Governor. The Hoylman-Sigal bill should pass without tarry as easily as pushing water downhill. It could be narrowed for the Trump trial alone and still pass constitutional muster. Singling out Presidents for different treatment under the law does not violate equal protection, according to the Supreme Court’s decision in Nixon v. Administer of General Services (1977).