| Chapter
7
Covering the
Courts
By Maurice
Possley
Introduction
“Scarcely
any question arises in the United States which does not become,
sooner or later, a subject of judicial debate.”
If anything, that statement has only become more accurate in more
than 150 years since Alexis de Tocqueville made the observation
in “Democracy in America.”
One need look no further than the explosion of books, movies, and
television (indeed, an entire network in Court TV) programs dedicated
to covering issues and cases in America’s legal system. The
court beat has always been an important one, but in recent years,
spurred largely by the televised trial of O.J. Simpson, covering
the courts—both the civil and criminal divisions—has
become exponentially more significant. It is a beat that intersects
with virtually every other beat in journalism at one time or another
because its very nature is to resolve society’s disputes,
to interpret the nation’s laws, and to enforce the fundamental
protections of law.
When I began covering a court beat in 1974 in Chicago for the City
News Bureau, I had no legal education or training. City News, a
wire service owned by Chicago’s major daily newspapers, was
operated as a training ground for journalists as well as a supplemental
source of information for the newspapers, as well as radio and television
outlets that subscribed to the service. I quickly realized how little
I knew, but at the same I discovered that this was the most exciting
and thought-provoking beat I had covered in my young career. Most
of my 30 years in the business have been devoted to covering the
courts and the legal system, and I find it to be more challenging
and rewarding than ever.
More than anything else, the law shapes and holds our society together.
The courts are responsible for a broad range of American life, ranging
from issues such as taxes, abortion, elections, crime, free speech,
health care, environment, and free enterprise. The law controls
how these things affect our lives. It is crucial that reporters
not only translate the often arcane into language that all can understand,
but that they connect the rulings and decisions in individual cases
to the everyday lives of our citizens.
These three chapters of the Criminal Justice Journalists-National
Center for Courts and Media Guide to Reporting offer information
and tips about court beat coverage, developing sources, finding
records, obtaining access, where to look for story ideas, how to
do enterprise reporting, and a basic legal primer. The guide is
designed to benefit those assigned full-time to the beat as well
as those who drop in to cover a single case or issue. It is broken
into two parts—civil and criminal—although there is
some overlap. It is not intended to provide a legal education, but
more of an understanding of how the court system operates and how
a reporter can go about reporting on what occurs there.
Court Organization
The U.S. courts are organized by jurisdiction and function. First
of all, there are two basic court systems—federal and state.
Within each court system there are different levels of function—trials,
intermediate appeals and final appeals.
Each state is empowered to determine how its court system will
be organized under its own constitution and laws. The federal court
system is organized under the U.S. Constitution.
In the lowest or trial court level, cases are initiated and initial
judgments are made—whether by agreement of all parties or
by judge or jury. This is where lawsuits are filed, criminal charges
are brought and trials are conducted. This is the level where evidence
is heard and judgments—whether by judge or by jury—are
rendered. It is by far the largest layer of the legal system. Some
jurisdictions have hundreds of judges and within the trial court
level are a wide variety of layers—ranging from small claims
courts where litigants bring cases on their own behalf to civil
and criminal courts subdivided by the gravity of the charge (misdemeanor
vs. felony) or the type of action (damages vs. injunctive relief).
More than 90 percent of all cases are disposed of in this arena
and it is where the majority of court reporting occurs.
The intermediate appellate division, typically organized by geographical
considerations and sometimes split between civil and criminal, is
where verdicts rendered in the trial division are reviewed for errors
of law and procedure. The appellate court does not hear new evidence
or evaluate the truth or reliability of evidence that was heard
in the trial courts. Instead, it is in this level of the legal process
where judges decide whether the trial court proceedings were handled
properly under the existing and applicable laws. Strict laws control
what can be heard and argued on the appellate level. Indeed, the
U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a Texas Death Row case, Herrera
v. Collins, that proof of actual innocence is not an automatic
ground for winning an appeal.
The final level of appeal is what we know as our “supreme”
courts. The state supreme courts handle a small number of the cases
that emerge from the intermediate appeals courts and in some instances,
certain cases, such as death penalty convictions, are appealed directly
to the state supreme courts, bypassing the intermediate appeals
courts.
Each state has its own court system that operates on laws that
are enacted within that state. Typically, state courts are organized
by county and city and into divisions of courts based on the types
of cases, such as traffic or civil damage lawsuits—or the
seriousness of the case, such misdemeanor and felony charges. Chicago,
for example, is located in the Cook County Circuit Court—one
of 104 county court organizations in Illinois.
Continue
to the next page in "Chapter 7: Covering the Courts" >>>
<<< Return to the previous page in "Chapter
6: Journalism Ethics"
|
