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APPEALING SUBJECTS
BY CRAIG MANSON
A Monthly - Weekend With Shades - Column

Justice Souter's line was hardly original; some twenty years earlier, then-Chief Justice Warren Burger used nearly identical words to express his opposition to allowing cameras in the courtroom of the nation's highest court. Many years later, cameras remain banned from the federal courts. And only fairly recently have cameras been allowed in most state courts.

Trials capture the ethos, pathos, eros, and drama of life in America. To paraphrase de Tocqueville, there's hardly a human or social issue that doesn't become a legal one. How better than the art of photography to record and illustrate such issues than by capturing the personae dramatis on stage, so to speak, in the courtroom?