Televised?
If so I’m surprised it wasn’t picked up by Netflix
As the highly-anticipated trial of Sean \
www.usatoday.com
Why won't Sean 'Diddy' Combs' trial be televised?
America's fascination with celebrity is perhaps only topped by the
intrigue when one such celebrity goes on trial.
At the nexus of Hollywood and the judicial system, the oft-televised proceedings present the ultimate spectacle, as the dirty laundry of society's most famous names becomes available by court order for public consumption.
The trial of
Sean "Diddy" Combs promises to be no different, as the
disgraced music mogul faces
federal charges for racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.
But unlike in the cases of Depp or Simpson, eager trial watchers will have to rely on courtroom sketches and reporter dispatches from inside, as cameras have been shut out of the proceedings.
Why won't the Diddy trial be televised?
Because
Combs faces federal criminal charges, the presence of "electronic media" is expressly banned by
a procedural rule passed in 1946.
Entitled Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 53, the statute bars both photographs and broadcasting from the courtroom of a federal criminal trial.
R. Kelly's federal criminal trial, on similar charges, was also not televised.
The rules around federal civil proceedings are slightly more flexible, allowing for recording in some instances at the discretion of the judge. Some criminal trials at the state level, like in the closely watched
case of Alex Murdaugh, allow for cameras in the courtroom.
