Wrong! Wrong! And What Are They Waiting For?

An online news outlet reported in a story, A New California Law Brings Hope of An Appeal For Lyle And Erik Menendez, that the Menendez brothers 1993 trial was “first trial that was televised and America couldn’t get enough.”

That is the first “wrong” in this piece. Broadcast and still photography covered Estes v. Texas in 1965. The first state in the country to enact official court rules allowing camera coverage in its state courts, which led to camera coverage of Chandler v. Florida.

Perhaps the article writer meant that Menendez brothers trial was the first trial in California to be televised, but that would have been wrong, too. The 1992 Rodney King beating trial was not only televised (I sat in that courtroom every day, just as I did both of the later Menendez brothers trials), TV viewers couldn’t get enough of that either. Neither could they get enough if the riots in L.A. that erupted after the four police officers were acquitted, nor of the trial of men who beat trucker Reginald Denny who just happened to be driving through a riot area.

The writer also got several details of the Menendez murders wrong.

What begs the question for me, though, was that even though California passed a law several years ago that might open the door for a Menendez brothers appeal, they have yet to do so. Why not? Especially since the clock is ticking toward a deadline.

Our Mutual Appreciation Society

Below is a comment photojournalist Haywood Galbreath posted on my “Anatomy of a Trial” by Jerrianne Hayslett Facebook page in response to the link I posted to yesterday’s “Anatomy of a Trial blog post.

Haywood first crossed my path during the Reginald Denny-beating trial (referred to by some in the media and the court as son of Rodney King-beating trial) two years after I became the Los Angeles Superior Court’s first ever director of public information. Haywood was nothing like I had ever encountered.

I mention that encounter in Anatomy of a Trial: Public Loss, Lessons Learned from The People vs. O.J. Simpson, and describe how he became the only photographer to have daily courtroom access to photograph the O.J. Simpson  trial, how he got to be the only pool photographer on the Simpson jury crime-scene visit, as well as some of the challenges and confrontations we weathered.

“I would like to thank Ms. Jerrianne Hayslett, for acknowledging me in her “Anatomy of a Trial blog”. She may not have completely understood my passion and what was behind my passion. She was however understanding and became an ally. When all is said and done no matter what the situation.

“If the people in your life do not completely understand but are understanding. Then you have been blessed more than you understand or know until time does what time does. That is brings about wisdom and understanding in you! I will be eternally grateful to her and what she did for the Black Press of America and me.”

Haywood taught me a lot, some of which took a while to understand and appreciate. I thank him for that and for his generous comment above. Haywood remains a friend and continues his successful career in photojournalism and other media.

A Welcome New O.J. Simpson Account — With Pictures

A photojournalist I met well before the infamous 1994-95 O.J. Simpson criminal trial invited me to Like the new Facebook page for his project, OJ “Trial Of The Century” Through The Lens Of A Black Press Photojournalist,

At this point this project is a work in progress, but the creator, photojournalist Haywood Galbreath has impressive plans.

In addition to an ebook in different format, “I also am working on a documentary and stationary photo exhibit as well as a traveling photo exhibit to tour different cities and talk about my experience in the trial next year,” Haywood said when I asked about the status of his project.

Here are a couple of his Status Updates from that page:

I want to establish in the beginning that my journey to being the only photojournalist in the world to have daily access to the O.J. Simpson double murder trial the “trial of the century” and the largest murder trial in the history of America. Was and still is a spiritual journey. As they say in a faraway place and a faraway time I chose to follow Christ. 

I also chose to believe in the power of the one I call the Great Spirit God. I could not have accomplished what I accomplished in covering that case without God making a way for me or faith, hope and love of which it speaks about in first Corinthians chapter 13 in the bible.As we take this journey, me telling my story about what it took to do it and what I saw take place in and documented taking place in the courtroom in regards to the O.J. Simpson double murder trial. I want to reiterate once again to everyone that for me it was and still is a spiritual journey. I truly believe that God ordained me from birth to make the journey for his Glory and to help his people.When I explain to you things that took place in my life and in reference to my coverage and documentation of the trial. I believe you will come to understand and believe also. What I hope the most is that you the reader will realize that what God did for me God will do for you also!

 

Twenty years ago this past August judge Lance Ito made a decision that was actually a major precedent. A major tilting of the moral arc toward that which is just. The decision was to permit the Black Press of America to have a photo position setting beside mainstream media daily in the O.J. Simpson double murder trial a major criminal court case.I am quite sure the judge did not make the decision lightly and he paid for it in many ways through his treatment by mainstream media. That decision the judge made that day. Only the most involved in media and the gathering of news images understand the precedent that was made with that decision.You will come to understand more about what I’m talking about in the book.

                                                          * * *

So far as I’m concerned, Haywood Galbreath personifies persistence and determination. He first crossed my radar in during the 1993 Reginald Denny-beating trial.  I mention Haywood several times in Anatomy of A Trial, including his request to staff a separate camera pool to represent African-American-owned and operated news organizations.

“But the Denny judge, while sympathetic, denied Galbreath’s request because he had submitted it after the trial had begun and logistics were already in place,” I wrote. “Galbreath didn’t make that mistake twice. …”

Although Haywood could be disruptive and was sometimes a pain, I came to respect not only his persistence, but his exemplary skills with a camera.

Although he has always maintained that the black perspective on the American condition and issues is different and stressed the importance of photographing events and situations from a black perspective, his recent comment says it best:

“I was of the strong opinion then and I am of the strong opinion now that anything that takes place in America, black Americans in all walks of life as well as Black Media if they choose to should have the right to have the same equal access as mainstream media.”

I eagerly await Haywood’s documentation of the Simpson trial as he photographed it.

Defense Consultant extraordinaire — and Funny

Little did I know when I wrote this haiku 20 years ago today the chuckle defense jury consultant Jo-Ellan Dimitrius would provide one day well into the Simpson  trial when she sat on a back bench in the courtroom beside me. I wrote a haiku on that day, too. But here is the one I wrote on Aug. 10, 1994

Jo-Ellan is here,

A jury picker deluxe.

Defense gets the best.

(Jo-Ellan Dimitrius is a jury consultant hired by the defense on a number of high profile trials, such as the Rodney King beating trial and the Reginald Denny beating trial in which the prosecutors did not achieve the convictions they sought.)