In a victory for news technology in federal courts, a judge is allowing a reporter to use the micro-blogging service Twitter to provide constant updates from a racketeering gang trial this week in Wichita, Kan.

It's not the first time online streaming has been allowed in courtrooms, but the practice is still rare in the federal system, especially in criminal cases.

A couple of lawyers voiced concern about the possibility that a juror might visit the online site to read the posts from Ron Sylvester, a reporter for the Wichita Eagle, but U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten said jurors are always told to avoid newspaper, broadcast and online reports.

"You either trust your jurors to live with the admonishment, or you don't," he said.

People use Twitter to update others on what they're doing or observing. The postings, known as "tweets," are limited to 140 characters and can be sent and received on a mobile phone or a computer.

Sylvester has been using Twitter for a year to cover hearings and trials in state courts, but the racketeering trial of six Crips gang defendants that he's covering online this week is his first in federal court.

Courtroom 'tweets' offer colour to subscribers

His courtroom "tweets" from his cellphone have recounted testimony and offered some courtroom colour.

Among them:

• "Judge Marten is talking to reluctant witness in chambers with a court reporter transcribing the conversation."
• "The witness who was yelling in the hallway earlier has not returned to the courthouse."
• "Defendants are chatting and laughing among themselves."
• "Exhibits are shown electronically. Every juror has a monitor in the box. There is a monitor at each lawyer's table and one for the gallery."

Sherry Chisenhall, executive editor of Sylvester's newspaper, said Twitter is "another form of reporting news" that lends itself to courtroom coverage.

"He certainly has not sacrificed accuracy, quality and standards," she said. "There is an immediacy that has been great for our audience."

Among those who have signed up to follow Sylvester's Twitter posts is the father of one of the defendants. The man lives in Houston, Sylvester said, and can't attend the trial.

"It does improve public access to the courts," Sylvester said.

Across the country, tech-savvy federal judges are becoming increasingly receptive to live courtroom media coverage using emerging technologies. Such coverage from journalists reporting from trials in state courts is already common.

The federal judiciary has historically been more restrictive in criminal trials, with some U.S. Supreme Court justices adamantly opposed to cameras in their courts.

Judges adjusting to new technologies

Federal judges have wide discretion on how to run trials when it comes to emerging online technologies.

"The more we can do to open the process to the public, the greater the public understanding — the more legitimacy the public system will have in the eyes of the public," Marten said in an interview with the Associated Press.

"This is so far removed from cameras and, frankly, cameras are coming too," Marten said of the online blogging.

Other recent examples from the federal system:

• A federal judge in Massachusetts granted a request in January for online streaming of a hearing in a recording industry lawsuit against a Boston University student accused of illegally downloading music.
• A federal judge in Sioux City, Iowa, allowed a Cedar Rapids Gazette reporter to offer live blog updates in a January tax fraud trial from a laptop computer.
• The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York allowed live television coverage in December of arguments in the case of Canadian engineer Maher Arar, who filed a lawsuit against the United States. In September 2002, U.S. officials detained Arar, claiming he had links to al-Qaeda, and deported him to Syria.
• In perhaps the highest-profile appearance of new media in the federal courts, bloggers covering the 2007 CIA leak trial for former vice-president Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, were given the same credentials as traditional journalists.

Recording devices and cameras are prohibited in all federal courtrooms during criminal trials. In some high-profile cases the Supreme Court releases audio recordings of oral arguments.

Both the House and Senate judiciary committees have passed legislation in the past two years that would authorize, but not require, cameras in federal courts. But neither the full House nor the Senate has voted on the legislation.