| Press Access To Live Cover
EDNY Uneven, Barrack and Zuttola
Trials Kafka So Far
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell
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EDNY COURTHOUSE,
Sept 30 – How does press
access to U.S. Federal courts
work? How should it?
In
the District for the District
of Columbia, you're allowed to
bring your phone and laptop
in. Inner City Press, which
does the same most days in the
SDNY, has covered proceeding
in DDC and then quickly
written them up, with laptop
and Internet hot spot in the
court's cafeteria.
It is different
in the U.S. District Court for
the Eastern District of New
York, the Brooklyn Federal
court, where Inner City Press
these days is covering, or
trying to cover, US v. Zottola
as well as US v. Barrack. They
take your phone, and even,
strangely, a laptop USB port.
You can apply, case by case,
to bring in electronics for a
particular trial.
Inner City
Press did just that for the
1MDB trial of Roger Ng (with
Jho Low on the run) held in
EDNY earlier this year.
And it seems
straight forward, to apply for
a similar pass to bring in
phone and laptop to cover the
current US v. Thomas Barrack
trial before EDNY Judge Brian
M. Cogan.
On the
first day of trial, September
21, Inner City Press submitted
an application to the EDNY
Clerk of Court, open 10-1 and
2-3. It was told to wait in
the document review room; it
gave its Manhattan press pass
to be copied in
support. Then it
was told, a phone call would
be coming. That's how it was
notified of the US v. Ng pass,
so fine. But no call came.
On Thursday,
September 22, it asked again
at the Clerk of Court and was
told, You will be
called. With no
call by September 28, a week
after applying, Inner City
Press checked again. It was
handed a yellow Post-It note
with the number of the EDNY
District Executive's office.
Without cell
phone, it called from the
payphone in the court - only
to be told it was not granted,
to write a letter to District
Executive Eugene J. Corcoran -
and that it could only be
delivered through the Clerk of
Court.
On Thursday
September 29, when Inner City
Press in EDNY covered not only
US v. Barrack but also two
sentencings before Judges
LeShawn DeArcy Hall and Ann M.
Donnelly, it turned in a more
detailed letter, attaching a
print out from Google News
showing Inner City Press'
stories prominent in a search
for Barrack and Grimes, and in
a search for EDNY. On that
basis, it is requesting an
on-going hard-pass.
At 4:30 pm
when the Barrack trial day was
over it called the DE's office
- but it was closed. It
left a voice mail,
wanting to bring laptop to
cover Friday's proceedings.
Receiving no
response of any kind, Inner
City Press amid the Zottola
and Barrack trials went to the
Clerk's Office again. They
called up to the 5th floor, no
answer. Later, Inner City
Press did, polite on both
side, "the papers are being
reviewed." For nine days? The
trial(s) slipping away.Watch
this site.
***
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