I there any reason to prefer these illustrations over photos, other than "charm"? Something like not recording things that weren't the centre of attention?
I've been learning how to sketch recently (not for courtrooms, just for fun), but something I noticed in the process might be relevant.
When you're sketching, you have to make choices about what's important and what to leave out. That means you have to study the scene pretty closely and pick what to represent. If courtroom sketching works like that, then I could see how having a skilled observer picking out important things to represent could be beneficial. If a particular moment is especially memorable, the sketch might capture and emphasize the drama in a way that a photo wouldn't. A sketch is kind of like the executive summary of a scene, removing noise and focusing in on what seemed important at the time.
This is a bit like scientific illustration, where one has to portrait an archetype representing a whole species, in the form on a perfect individual that has all the important characteristics but doesn't exist and was never directly observed by the artist.
While all the sketching seems less efficient, I'd really rather not have courtroom activities be photographed and used in mass media. Or, images have so much power and I'd hate to see them twisted or misused for someone's personal/political gain later.
Sure, but surely sketches can be just as twisted and misused (e.g. drawing a defendant with a menacing snarl), and even more so given that there's no source of real truth.
Sketches are further removed from reality than photographs, so the viewer would know that this is the artist's interpretation of the event. If you bring a camera and take 100 or 1000 shots of someone, you can pick any one of them to act as the full representation of reality. Look how much people trust publicity photos or photos in ads to be unaltered to see how much faith people put in photography. Also, anyone can be made to look jovial or angry if you take enough photos of them, and the photo is more closely related to reality in the viewer's mind than an illustration.
Kind of related, in Sweden, there's been a murder case in the newspapers the last months where the defendants' heads were blurred in photos during the trial and their names were anonymized. As soon as they were convicted, full photos and names were published. Here the idea is to protect their identities until found guilty. I don't know if this is regulated by law or if it's just a matter of press ethics.
But people seem to inherently understand that the sketch artist controls what you see, the moment they're showing you. They're less aware that photographers do the same thing - most people treat photographs as "objective truth".
Well indeed, I suppose I should have also said "aside from photography being disallowed". Perhaps to phrase another way, why could anyone be against the reintroduction of photography into courtrooms?
Most jurors would probably object to having their faces seen in public for concerns of retribution after the trial (and/or influencing during the trial), particularly in the brave new world of facial recognition tech.
I think it's an extension of trying to avoid the effects of "conviction in the court of public opinion". Imagine seeing a coworker on trial on the news.
Or imagine being on trial, declared innocent, but most people just saw the fact you were on trial and recognize you by your picture.
There's also details like having the jury's faces be out there.
Personally I think a lot of this is "solvable", and having video footage in places like the supreme court would make coverage of it a bit easier for places like TV. Say what you will about TV dumbing things down and only taking fragments, having more people pay attention to the judicial system would be a net positive IMO
This sounds like an implicit discussion about semi-secret courts for the pure reason of defending a potentially innocent defendant.
What happens if X is tried for $crime and is found not guilty? Court of public opinion may still see them as guilty, and keep away rental properties, jobs, and social network away from them. And now since communication is in ms across the world, perhaps we ought to come back to this.
I could easily see it being perceived as distracting and leading to different behavior than is explicitly necessary for justice.
Like pauses until camera flashes stop, lawyers grandstanding more, consciously planning grandiose gestures for the purpose of having the picture taken and shared, etc.
When you're sketching, you have to make choices about what's important and what to leave out. That means you have to study the scene pretty closely and pick what to represent. If courtroom sketching works like that, then I could see how having a skilled observer picking out important things to represent could be beneficial. If a particular moment is especially memorable, the sketch might capture and emphasize the drama in a way that a photo wouldn't. A sketch is kind of like the executive summary of a scene, removing noise and focusing in on what seemed important at the time.