Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Televised Trials: Past And Present, Grant Greer

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

In the early fifties, the television media sought to cover criminal trials with television cameras. A few states allowed some television coverage, but they were a minority. One of these states, Texas, made constitutional history when it allowed the television coverage of the criminal trial of Billie Estes in 1962. The case had been appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, where his conviction had been reversed because of the television coverage of his trial. The Supreme Court's holding in that case had been rather ambiguous because one justice in the five - man majority, while agreeing with the …