Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

Finally, by 4 p.m., a jury of 12 members and 4 alternates was seated and instructed.

It all begins tomorrow at 9 a.m. with opening statements.

Looking at my notes, if one were a courtroom junkie, I could tell you why the room is so cold (Judge Mollway likes it that way), and all kinds of stuff that frankly, isn’t terribly important. For a blow-by-blow, check out Sara Lin’s live blog on the Civil Beat website. She’s doing a great job, and these past two days must be something of a warm-up for the real action tomorrow.

Oh, one thing that interested several of us—KGMB has brought in a courtroom sketchbook artist. It was fascinating to watch her and later, outside the courtroom, to ask her how she got started, what cases she’s worked on, and so forth.

It really is cool that finally, at last, a laptop is allowed into the courtroom. Just one, of course, but that’s a breakthrough. Over time, perhaps we can drag our federal district court at least into the 20th century. But is taking a photograph less disruptive, or very much different, than having a sketch artist labor for hours to produce a similar effect? Would a tweet or two from the peanut gallery really be so bad?

At least the judges have given up their white wigs.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 7/28/2011 06:03:00 PM