Georgia's Superior Court judges are set to meet Monday to consider a major overhaul of a court rule in place for decades governing the use of cameras and electronic recording devices in courtrooms across the state.
That rule, Rule 22, was adopted three decades ago largely to regulate and set standards for news media use of news cameras and other recording devices during court proceedings. But with the proliferation of personal electronic devices able to make video and audio recordings, coupled with the explosion of social media, state judges have been prompted to propose dramatic changes to the longtime rule.
Cobb County Superior Court Judge Stephen Schuster, chairman of the Rules Committee of the state Council of Superior Court Judges, said the committee would meet in open session Monday from 1-3 p.m. at the council's summer conference on St. Simons Island to hash out the rewrite. If the rules committee reaches consensus on the proposed changes, the entire council will likely vote Wednesday on whether to approve the new rule, Schuster said.
Schuster said the judges decided to rewrite the rule because of vast technological changes that have taken place since it was first put in place in 1985. "We need to find a balance that protects those who are in court and the public's ability to have a good understanding of what we are doing," he said.
"This isn't about open courts, about coming in and watching a hearing," he added, but rather the possibility that confidential conversations between lawyers and their clients might be recorded and made public, that jurors' personal information and identities or sensitive information that could surface in child custody and divorce cases might be published online and become accessible to millions."
Changes to the judges' proposal have been offered by the Southern Center for Human Rights, the Georgia First Amendment Foundation, and attorneys representing The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Cox Media Group.
The Georgia First Amendment Foundation on Friday suggested that language in the new rule now under consideration would make the courts "less welcoming to the public by restricting anyone other than lawyers from using phones or other electronic devices in the courtroom, even if the devices would not disrupt proceedings," including use of an electronic device to take notes or send and receive emails and texts.
The foundation has proposed allowing the silent use of portable electronic devices inside a courtroom and limiting exceptions only "to maintain safety, decorum and order, and protect the integrity of the proceedings."
The foundation's proposal also would require judges to "bear in mind the state's longstanding policy favoring open judicial proceedings and anticipate that reporters and other public observers seated in the courtroom may properly use such devices to prepare and post online accounts and commentary during the proceedings."