Are we behind Putin in preserving evidence of court proceedings?

In Russia, a bill was just introduced which would require to videotape all court and even arbitration proceedings.

In New York, videotaping court proceedings is a crime of misdemeanor punishable with up to a year in jail, Civil Rights Law 52.

I wrote a lot on this blog about the importance of preserving evidence of court proceedings through videotaping, and not to give a "monopoly for the truth" to court reporters who, in fear of their job security will not report, for example, judicial misconduct. 

In fact, as the recent disciplinary case against an attorney in Louisiana shows, a court reporter would go to an extraordinary length to try to block access to an audio file requested by the attorney to verify veracity of the transcript, to the point of filing a lawsuit - while the audio file was cooked during the pendency of the lawsuit to insert a "disclosure" of the judge that was previously missing from the audio - and the transcript.

The judge was ordered recused from the case.

The attorney whistleblower, who exposed likely criminal activity of #JudgePhyllisKeaty, lost her law license for a "year and a day" for "disrupting court proceedings" with allegedly "unwarranted motions to recuse".

Had there been independent video recordings - from multiple sources, both official and unofficial, by members of the public or by litigants themselves - no such thing would have happened.  Judge Keaty would have been YouTube'd from the bench immediately. 

A video recording can make a difference when a judge tries to misrepresent the record - as a Russian judge tried to do, I described it here.  The Russian judge did not know he was secretly recorded.

The Russian judge was been suspended from the bench, and the attorney who he ordered bodily carried out of the courtroom, and then complained about that attorney for "wilfully abandoning the case", is now a hero.

In Louisiana, on the opposite, the judge whose "disclosure" was criminally inserted into a court audiofile, #JudgePhyllisKeaty, was promoted to an appellate court, and the whistleblower attorney #ChristineMire who exposed Judge Keaty's misconduct, lost her license.

What a difference several videotapes of proceedings in front of Judge Keaty (and other such judges) could have made.

And - are we going to be behind Russia, Russia, a country that is being blamed for all kinds of human rights violations under its current president - on the issue of transparency of court proceedings?

Are judicial lobbies opposing videotaping because, with a possibility of being YouTubed at any time, judges would not be able to act as rude and vulgar petty tyrants, as they do now?

I bet, the bench would not be that popular then - where there will be an occupational hazard of a possibility of daily exposure of judges' tantrums, tantrums of people with expensive and privileged education and a life of privilege before coming to the bench.

But, as of now, it isn't Russia, so do not hope for transparency of court proceedings...