Today marks the first full jury trial to be livestreamed out of Jury Room A at the Quincy District Courthouse. To our knowledge, this is the first criminal trial to ever be livestreamed in Massachusetts.

“There is no reason to single OpenCourt out and impose on it a variety of restrictions that do not apply to other media organizations,” Supreme Judicial Court Justice Margot Botsford wrote in a 10-page memorandum and judgment issued yesterday, August 14.

The information office of the highest court in Massachusetts today launched a new online registration process for citizens and news organizations wishing to use cameras and other electronic equipment to cover court hearings throughout the state. The process is a lead-in for amended courtroom media rules that become effective next month.

Stream full audio of Thursday’s four-party hearing before Supreme Judicial Court Margot Justice Botsford.

A hearing before Supreme Judicial Court Justice Margot Botsford is scheduled for 4 p.m. this Thursday, August 9, in Courtroom Two of the John Adams Courthouse in Boston.

Members of OpenCourt have for months openly planned to begin coverage of Jury Room A, and were set to begin livestreaming proceedings on Monday, July 16. Those plans are currently in a temporary state of limbo.

In a scene Friday that echoed a plot line from the film Minority Report, CPCS defense attorney Ethan Yankowicz moved that a charge against his client should be dismissed on grounds the state would essentially be criminalizing a state of mind.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court today ruled in favor of OpenCourt’s ability to video record, stream and archive public court proceedings online, writing that restricting rights to publish would violate First Amendment press protections.

Arrested for larceny in 2010, Sheehan was offered an alternative to prison time. Called drug court, it’s a strict 18-month rehabilitation program that would require living in a halfway house with a curfew, as well as submitting to regular drug testing and counseling, and appearing weekly before Quincy District Court Judge Diane Moriarty. Story includes extra audio.

Quincy District Court was always meant to be a test-bed to discover new ways to cover the court system, and we’re taking steps towards the next phase of expansion.