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Law360 (December 15, 2020, 4:37 PM EST ) A group of 13 federal district courts will livestream audio from select proceedings in civil cases as part of an effort to improve public access to court proceedings, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts announced Tuesday.
U.S. Supreme Court arguments are livestreamed on a laptop in May. Thirteen federal district courts will provide real-time audio of certain proceedings on YouTube as part of a pilot program, the court system said Tuesday. (Photo Illustration by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
"The pilot reflects the Judiciary's commitment to transparency and to increasing public access to court proceedings — an issue that has taken on even greater importance in the last year," U.S. District Judge Audrey G. Fleissig, chair of the Judicial Conference's Committee on Court Administration and Case Management, said in a statement.
The program will give members of the public real-time audio access to certain cases on participating courts' designated YouTube channels, the announcement said. Hearings permitted to be livestreamed will require the consent of the parties involved in the case and the approval of the presiding judge.
The courts participating in the program are in the districts of Northern California, Southern Florida, Northern Georgia, Kansas, Montana, Eastern Missouri, Nevada, Northern New York, Western Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Eastern Tennessee, Eastern Washington, and Washington, D.C.
Trial and civil proceedings including jurors and witnesses or sealed, confidential and classified materials are barred from streaming. The public will also be prohibited from recording or rebroadcasting the streams.
The Judicial Conference of the U.S., the courts' national policy-making body, in March greenlighted the two-year program. Planning for the program preceded the pandemic, though the authorization came right as courts adjusted their operations due to social-distancing restrictions.
The federal judiciary has traditionally been a guarded institution, but the coronavirus pandemic has prompted more of its courts to livestream oral arguments. The U.S. Supreme Court, for example, began conducting hearings via teleconference in the spring and for the first time offered live audio to the proceedings.
Some of the courts participating in the pilot program have already experimented with audio livestreams. For example, on Dec. 7, more than 40,000 people tuned into the Northern District of Georgia's audio feed of a hearing challenging the state's presidential election outcome, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said.
Those that have not yet begun livestreaming will do so by February, the announcement said.
Lawmakers and transparency advocates have called for the streaming practices to continue long after the pandemic wanes. Some judges also expressed openness to more permanent changes during a congressional hearing in June.
--Additional reporting by Andrew Kragie. Editing by Alanna Weissman.
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