After spending most of the week live blogging the Libby Trial deliberations in Washington DC, I arrived home in Connecticut early this morning. I want to write up some my experiences in DC, but first, I wanted to check to see what is going on with the Ken Krayeske trial. A quick scan of online sources causes me to pause, and instead reflect on the state of the judiciary in Connecticut.

I don’t want to come off as any sort of ‘expert’ on the role of new media in coverage of judicial proceedings. It probably takes a lot more than four days as a blogger at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, but that is probably four more days and a lot more thinking on the subject than most people in Connecticut.

Over at Connecticut NewsJunkie, there is an article about “The Judicial Media Committee”. When I read the opening paragraphs, I thought, “Wow, I want to be on that committee. Let’s sit down and talk about how to open up our courts, not only to professional journalists, but also to citizen journalists.” I thought of talking with judges, lawyers and journalists about the idea that I wrote about on my last day in DC,

I hope that this little experiment of having a media room in a courthouse with public Wifi, open to bloggers and citizen journalists as well as traditional journalists will become a model for all courthouses in the future. I hope that journalism professors, media educators, and high school civics teachers get opportunities to send students to such media rooms around the country.

Yes, my old idealism shines through. Wouldn’t it be great if the courthouses were more open, if people came to see the courts through the eyes of their neighbors who blog, not as something to be avoided, especially in terms of jury duty, but as a fascinating and crucial component of what keeps our country strong and safe.

While I was in DC, I spoke with an anchor at CourtTV who commented about courts in Connecticut not allowing cameras. I commented on this over at MyLeftNutmeg, hoping to stir up activists to get involved with calling for better access to the courts. I brought it up when Rep. Drew visited MyLeftNutmeg.

In a later discussion with folks at CourtTV, one of their correspondents made a compelling argument for the importance of better coverage of courts. If you look at the evening news, you will always here the beginning of the story, the latest shooting. If it bleeds, it leads. Yet how often do you hear the aftermath, the conviction of the perpetrators? What sort of message does this lack of closure send to our citizens? People shoot people but we rarely hear of them going to jail. How safe is our country? What does this communicate to potential criminals? Yeah, there’s always stories about shootings. Lots of people shoot people. There’s never stories about people getting convicted and going to jail. I guess I don’t have to worry about that.

I think she makes an important argument, and I hoped that this new committee could help address some of these issues. Then, I read a little further in the article on CTNewsJunkie.

the Judicial Media Committee should be charged to form a quick-response team comprised of judges and reporters to be available to review questions and disputes over judicial proceedings the same day a dispute arises

My heart sunk. Are we that far from wanting openness in our courts that we need yet another committee to argue whether or not the courts are open enough in this instance or that? Are we talking about yet another band-aid or systemic changes?

The comments to the CTNewsJunkie report were not especially encouraging. What will it take to make real changes to our judicial system in Connecticut? I don’t know. As it stands now, I looks like the only way that a citizen journalist can get any sort of access in Connecticut courts is to try and take a picture of our Governor. This has got to change.

Update: According to the Public Access Task Force of the Judicial Branch, the email address for their committee is public.access@jud.ct.gov. I sent an email to that address about my blog post. It bounced. So much for public access.

Updated 2: I sent a note to Sen. McDonald and Rep. Lawlor about the problem with the email address bouncing. Rep. Lawlor noted that Judge Borden was testifying before Lawlor and he would bring it up. Christine Stuart, of CTNewsJunkie, has also helped try to address getting information to the public access committee.