Witnesses’ faces should be obscured on camera, every time a trial is broadcast on commercial TV. Yesterday CNN’s In Session broadcast a young, former classmate of fire victim Calista Springer.

Enough. Please.

In Session’s current coverage of the trial of two parents for the murder of their child (Michigan v Springer) is all the evidence I need to claim that non-investigative, non-expert witnesses deserve privacy rights. Most such witnesses should not be forced to have their faces broadcast on cable TV.

The seemingly endless coverage of the Springer prosecution’s case has displayed far too-many private citizens’ faces: a grandmother of the victim, stepsisters, cousins, in-laws, grade-school teachers, and more. Since the defense has yet to present its case (or cases), all these witnesses have appeared for the prosecution, but were forced to do so on camera. All—no matter how closely related to the family or how estranged—have presented a very dismal picture of the parenting skills and characters of the defendants. Unfortunately, not all these witnesses have presented good pictures of themselves, either.

Sidebar: Because I respect these peoples’ rights, not only to privacy but to their own opinions, I won’t enumerate the biased opinions that some of these witnesses expressed on the witness stand or in TV interviews. However, I think the CNN commentators ought to point out that in a murder trial witnesses are understood to have biases—understood by the law, that is, although apparently not by TV commentators. When the judge finally instructs the Springer jury, he will undoubtedly tell them to make up their own minds about the truth of what the witnesses said. But it seems to me as if CNN’s anchors have accepted every prosecution witness at face value.

The Springer trial isn’t the only trial in which CNN broadcast children’s faces. Elaine Clermont’s daughter was shown on camera, even though she did not testify in her mother’s trial. In the trial of police officer Ron Killings, CNN broadcast the face of a very young child who was ultimately deemed unfit to testify. In every trial, CNN shows mothers of victims, children of defendants who plead for mercy for their parents—this is entirely unnecessary.

Several times I’ve been seduced into commenting in this blog on witnesses (sisters-in-law, step-daughters, brothers) who appeared to me to be vindictive and/or self-serving during the broadcast of their testimony. After all, a trial is a public event at public expense, and when it’s broadcast on cable it seemed to me that it ought to be fair game for commentary. But I’ve changed my mind: it isn’t. I won’t do this again.

Look at what media coverage has done to Casey Anthony’s family: pickets have surrounded their house; they’ve been accused of incest; they’ve been suspected of complicity in murder. In Florida, the courts have so little respect for privacy, videotapes of Casey meeting with her parents in jail have been broadcast across the country.

Trials must be public if liberty is important to us. America can’t conduct Star Chamber prosecutions. Cameras should be present in all courtrooms, and the public should have a way of monitoring the proceedings while they’re in progress. The technology exists to accomplish this via the Internet. CNN’s occasional live broadcasts are also informative—live, unedited.

But, edited cable broadcasts of completed trials (such as the Springer trial) aren’t a good idea, in my opinion. Grandmothers ought not to be interviewed in order to reminisce about a deceased grandchild and express uninformed opinions about her mental state. Snippets of a teenage sister’s testimony in support of her parents ought not to be used as trailers to a commercial broadcast. School children who testify should never be shown on camera. The faces of grade-school teachers should not be exposed on cable TV. (And the interrogation of a possible witness most certainly ought not to be shown on TV.) Footage of witness testimony ought not to be edited into a dramatic montage.

American law supposedly protects private citizens from public criticism: libel and slander laws prohibit defamatory comments about private citizens. Most of CNN’s In Session commentators are lawyers who know how to characterize bystander witnesses such as those I’ve mentioned without expressly defaming them, but it seems to me exposing them to public scrutiny is an invasion of their privacy, whether or not TV commentators are polite to them.

Furthermore, once a defendant is convicted, then positive commentary on the prosecution’s case and critical commentary on the defense’s case are fair game. Unfortunately, as a consequence, when a cable program such as In Session edits a trial and then presents it after the verdict, the commentators feel free to express highly critical, defamatory opinions of the defense without fear. For example, Calista Springer’s stepsisters have been likened to the stepsisters in Cinderella and were accused of “picking on” her. This is grossly unfair to them.

Many aspects of In Session’s new format are quite good. I like the new, on-staff trial commentators, who are measured in their remarks. The live coverage of breaking news is very good. However, the commercials that air on TruTV are entirely inappropriate: I can take only so many clips of drunks being arrested in any context, but in the context of real life-and-death matters it’s grotesque. And even though In Session repeatedly assures its audience that no testimony is being edited out, in fact it’s clear that the trial coverage is severely edited: the only thing that should be cut out is the faces of private citizens.