A brouhaha is developing in Texas over a trial judge's acquiesence to a request by PBS and lawyers for a 17 year old charged with capital murder to allow the filming of the actual jury deliberations as part of a documentary for Frontline on the murder trial.

As jury selection was underway today, the Texas Court of Appeals, acting upon the request of the prosecution, issued an order staying the trial and directing the trial judge to explain his ruling by next week in writing.

The defense lawyers want the filming. They want to show the reality of trying a juvenile for murder which includes the state's arguing for the death penalty for a 17 year old and the jury's grappling with both the guilt decision, and potentially, the life or death decision. The Prosecutors oppose it.

We are as much of an opponent of the death penalty as anyone, and we rarely agree with prosecutors, but this is a tough one. There is something just too unseemly about it, too Gladiator-like, too reminiscent of the days of ancient Rome when people went to the colliseum to watch so-called sporting events in which one contestant was brutally killed. What's next after broadcasting deliberations into into our living rooms? Football stadiums where people cheer as the final needle is administered?

However, we acknowledge that some death penalty opponents think that by televising executions and confronting citizens with the reality of their brutality and inhumanity (yes even lethal injection is a brutal process, it's not like getting an iv before surgery), more people will come to oppose them.

The fact that it's Frontline makes a difference to us, but not enough to change our mind. Frontline is an exceptional documentary series on PBS that frequently deals with injustices in the criminal justice system. Their programs Snitch and What Jennifer Saw (on eyewitness misidentification) and A Case for Innocence were simply masterful (and are re-run from time to time.)

Rejecting the idea of televising jury deliberations isn't such a big leap for us because we have always been opposed to cameras in the courtroom unless the defendant and his lawyers want it. It should be the defendant's choice--he has the constitutional right to a fair and impartial trial --although, that being said, we can't imagine wanting a televised trial for one of our clients. We think cameras that broadcast trials into living rooms affect the participants. Everyone plays to them a little bit, no matter how much they may deny it - from the Judge, to the lawyers to the witnesses.

We were surprised to read, in the same article, that Henry Schleiff, the CEO of Court TV, opposes the filming of deliberations and said Court TV has never requested to film them. Another opposing view came from Richard Dieter, who heads up the excellent anti-death penalty organization, Death Penalty Information Center.

We were a little curious about the Texas Judge who agreed to it.

"Poe, a former prosecutor who was appointed to the bench in 1981, is well known in Houston. He has forced convicts to carry signs outside the courthouse proclaiming their crime and earlier this year said a teacher convicted of having sex with a student was ``a bigger threat to our culture and our students than Osama bin Laden and his cave dwellers.''

Not our kind of Judge. But, even so, but we have to vote against Frontline on this one. Jury deliberations have always been sacrosanct and secret. We believe the secrecy of deliberations encourages people to speak freely and share their views (even as awful as some of them might be) and return a verdict that is more likely to be free from external influences. We like juries. We don't want them to be afraid to vote "not guilty" in a case involving an ugly crime but the wrong perpertrator because they fear being ostracized by the community afterwards.

Update: The New York Times takes the same position we do in an editorial Wednesday, The 13th Juror.