SALT LAKE CITY — In an era of artificial intelligence and cell phone videos, a sizable part of the American justice system remains off-limits to cameras; specifically, federal courthouses across the United States.
In place of cameras, courtroom illustrators have been allowed inside federal trials to capture what they see on paper.
FOX 13 News set forth to demystify this time-honored art form by talking with a courtroom illustrator from Holladay, Utah.
Scott Snow’s career as a courtroom sketch artist began in the early 1980s; he had an art degree from Utah State University under his belt when he received a call from a news director at a local television station.
Over his roughly 40 year career, Snow has used pastels and colored paper to draw innumerable courtroom proceedings, which include many high-profile cases from Elizabeth Smart to Bill Gates.
Usually, Snow had around 10-to-20 minutes to complete his illustration from start to finish.
He says a reporter would tell him what to draw, but the rest was up to him, including how the subject matter was portrayed.
Snow remarks, “I was pretty much set on just drawing what I saw. There was one time I did editorialize.”
That one time was in 1984 when Dan Lafferty and his brother Ron were on trial for killing their sister-in-law Brenda and her baby.
They claimed God told them to do it.
“I got so mad at what I had heard that when I drew him at the podium,” Snow explains. “I drew his likeness just perfect.
But then I included his hands and his fingers with red. That was my silent, subtle commentary on how I felt about him.”
When the Laffertys were tried, all courtrooms across the country prohibited the use of audio and video recording devices.
But times have changed, and so have camera policies for most district and state courts in the U.S., with the majority now allowing cameras.
Yet federal courtrooms still haven’t changed, and one local attorney wants their proceedings to be captured through a camera lens.
“We are giving a lot of power in those situations to courtroom illustrators and their subjective interpretations of what’s going on, because it becomes an indelible part of what people perceive about the case," said Salt Lake City lawyer David Reymann.
He believes that federal courts refusing to allow cameras in the courtroom will cause more people to question the accuracy of courtroom illustrations.
Still, he thinks these visual interpretations have a place and purpose.
“I don’t want courtroom illustrations to go away . . . I think they’re wonderful but I think that there should always be an opportunity for the public to see with a camera what is actually going on,” said Reymann.
As for Snow, he’s been retired from the courtroom illustrator life for a few years now, and as he holds onto reminders of his success, Snow remains optimistic about his industry’s future.
He says, “Until cameras are allowed in the federal courts, there will always be an illustrator going in and drawing the news.”
