s decision (Neiman, 1981). In the Chandler case, the Court found that an experimental program of televising criminal trials in Florida, begun in 1979, was not prohibited by the Constitution, and had not deprived the defendants, two Miami police officers at the time of their arrest for burglary in 1977, of their rights to a fair and impartial trial (Neiman, 1981).
Having previously ruled, through a variety of decisions in the 1960s and 1970s, that the news media have a constitutional right to be present at criminal trials, the issue in Chandler was whether or not the media had a constitutional privilege to televise "that which they had a right to attend" (Neiman, 1981). Invoking Florida's newly revised Canon 3A(7), the judge permitted television coverage of the trial, over repeated objections by defense lawyers. Jurors had indicated that they would not be influenced by the presence of television cameras as they considered the case, and actual TV coverage was scant--the jury voir dire, about three minutes' testimony of one prosecution witness, and
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