<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><BillSummaries>
<item congress="115" measure-type="s" measure-number="643" measure-id="id115s643" originChamber="SENATE" orig-publish-date="2017-03-15" update-date="2017-04-04">
<title>Sunshine in the Courtroom Act of 2017</title>
<summary summary-id="id115s643v00" currentChamber="SENATE" update-date="2017-04-04">
<action-date>2017-03-15</action-date>
<action-desc>Introduced in Senate</action-desc>
<summary-text><![CDATA[<p><strong>Sunshine in the Courtroom Act of</strong> <b>2017</b></p> <p>This bill authorizes the presiding judge of a U.S. appellate court or U.S. district court to permit the photographing, electronic recording, broadcasting, or televising to the public of court proceedings over which that judge presides, except when it would constitute a violation of the due process rights of any party.</p> <p>Upon the request of any witness in a trial proceeding other than a party, a district court must order the face and voice of the witness to be disguised or otherwise obscured to render the witness unrecognizable to the broadcast audience of the trial proceeding. The presiding judge in a trial proceeding must inform each witness who is not a party of the right to make such request. </p> <p>A presiding judge may obscure the face and voice of an individual if good cause is shown that photographing, electronic recording, broadcasting, or televising such features would threaten the individual's safety, the court's security, the integrity of future or ongoing law enforcement operations, or the interest of justice.</p> <p>The bill prohibits a presiding judge from permitting the photographing, electronic recording, broadcasting, or televising of any juror in a trial proceeding, or of the jury selection process. </p> <p>The bill terminates a district court's authority under this bill three years after its enactment.</p> <p>The Judicial Conference of the United States must promulgate mandatory guidelines that a presiding judge must follow for obscuring certain vulnerable witnesses. </p> <p>The bill prohibits any audio pickup or broadcast of conferences which occur in a court proceeding between attorneys and their clients, co-counsel of a client, adverse counsel, or counsel and the presiding judge, if the conferences are not part of the official record of the proceedings.</p>]]></summary-text>
</summary>
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<dc:language>EN</dc:language>
<dc:rights>Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain.</dc:rights>
<dc:contributor>Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress</dc:contributor>
<dc:description>This file contains bill summaries for federal legislation. A bill summary describes the most significant provisions of a piece of legislation and details the effects the legislative text may have on current law and federal programs. Bill summaries are authored by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress. As stated in Public Law 91-510 (2 USC 166 (d)(6)), one of the duties of CRS is "to prepare summaries and digests of bills and resolutions of a public general nature introduced in the Senate or House of Representatives". For more information, refer to the User Guide that accompanies this file.</dc:description>
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