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Denver PostJury of our peering-in may be next
Sunday, December 01, 2002 - It hasn't
come to this yet, but imagine the pitch: "Twelve Angry Men" meets "Fear
Factor" at a tribal council in Texas.
Picture a capital-punishment case starring a youthful defendant, to be
decided by a diverse group of camera-ready Americans. The setting is an official-looking oak-paneled jury room, normally
off-limits to cameras but carefully outfitted with "Big Brother"-style
cameras. On screen we see lots of sweat and shirt-sleeves, sleep
deprivation and sequestration. As the jurors' inhibitions drop, tempers
rise. Will they or won't they? (Clanging prison-cell audio over death row
graphics and computer-animated electric-chair sizzle.) As the days wear on, the jurors, some looking like "Survivor: Thailand"
refugees, reveal claws and fangs. The home audience second-guesses their
choices, hoping to win cash prizes via 800 phone lines on which callers
can vote "guilty" or "not guilty." The fascination with "reality" TV may never come to that. But a
respected documentary series wants access to the once-secret jury room to
put the deliberations in a capital case on TV for the first time. PBS's "Frontline" has asked permission to film all aspects of the trial
in a Texas death-penalty case involving a 17-year-old defendant. Including
jury deliberations. So far, the defendant and his mother have agreed; lawyers for the
defense figure the TV spotlight on the death penalty can only help
them. Prosecutors aren't so enthusiastic. Picking jurors from a pool of
citizens eager to see themselves on national TV doesn't sound
promising. We may love amazing races, smiling bachelors and fearless daredevils.
I'm not sure we want showboats, ready for their 15 minutes, lining up for
jury duty on capital cases. Some claim the presence of cameras would have a chilling effect on a
full discussion of the case and may cause some jurors to be less likely to
impose the death penalty. Maybe that's the point. Televising the deliberations might make people
think harder about the death penalty in the first place. Americans may
support capital punishment when their vote is secret; they may be
reluctant to put a fellow citizen to death when the kid's family is going
to watch them vote. Useful or rueful, it's a reminder of how technology regularly intrudes
on what used to be private, soulful moments. Are there any private,
soulful moments left? The reality show seems to be edging out reality as
the norm in every aspect of modern life, from dating to jury selection.
According to the current culture, peak experiences and holy moments aren't
meant to be witnessed individually anymore. Crises and epiphanies are
products, to be performed before millions, preferably in close-up. If it involves messy interaction, tension or difficult choices, it
belongs on TV. At the least the medium demands anger, angst and tears. Eventually, of course, we'll have cameras in the death chamber to
witness the lethal injection, too. That's a battle for another day. For
now, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is weighing an appeal from
prosecutors questioning the propriety of allowing "Frontline" to film jury
deliberations. I trust "Frontline's" journalistic ethics. I trust the producers to do
a nonintrusive job in order to educate the public. The resulting two-hour
film won't air for a couple of years, the producers have said. I don't
worry, because their integrity is proven. But who's going to follow "Frontline"? What kind of schlock production
with dramatic editing and less admirable motives might be next? There must
be many ways to make good TV out of what's supposed to be a sacrosanct
corner of democracy. Maybe TV should be content with the snake pits of "Fear Factor" rather
than those in jury rooms. Courts are open in America, but jury deliberations are intentionally
private. That is, they used to be, before every facet of our inner lives
became infotainment fodder. Joanne Ostrow's column appears Sundays in Arts & Entertainment
and weekdays in The
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