To hear some members of the New York State Legislature tell it, the process of justice in the state's courts is far too delicate a snowflake to be exposed to the full light of day. Even if that light can be captured by small and silent digital cameras that neither blaze nor whirr.

What is genuinely frightening about this line of logic, which may yet block the long-overdue move to allow full video coverage of selected court proceedings in New York, is that it could just as easily argue against public access to, or coverage of, the work of any government body. Brought to its absurd conclusion, the belief that the people aren't smart enough to understand televised trials could lead to banning reporters from the courtrooms altogether, as well as from legislative debates.

But the republic has well withstood the frequent oversimplification of its government. And its founding principle is that, as distasteful as it can sometimes be, daylight is the best guarantee that justice will prevail over favoritism or sloppiness.

After 10 years of unjustified inaction, a bill that would allow judges, on a case-by-case basis, to open proceedings to video cameras has been reported out by the State Senate Judiciary Committee. Its main backer is Judiciary Chairman John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, himself a trial lawyer who has argued cases before TV cameras with, in his mind, no ill effect.

Still cameras are already allowed, again on a case-by-case basis as determined by the presiding judge in each case. The bill's chances of passing the full Senate are thought to be decent, and it has the support of both Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer and Judith Kaye, the state's top Appeals Court judge.

But rumblings in both the Senate and the Assembly, which must also pass the bill, hold that video cameras in the courtroom are a threat because they will push participants to think less about the dispensation of justice and more about how they will play on the 11 o'clock news.

But a 10-year series of experiments with the use of cameras in the state's courtrooms convinced the experts that, if anything, allowing video coverage of court proceedings actually improved the judicial system by bringing the people into the workings of the courts that act in their name.

Fears that judges and lawyers would play to the cameras, favor the zippy quote over the reasoned argument or, like that poor overwhelmed jurist handling the Anna Nicole Smith case, dissolve into tears on live TV went completely unfounded in New York courts.

But that was before the 2005 ruling of the State Court of Appeals that state civil rights law expressly prohibits video recordings in any legal proceeding where testimony is compelled and that, if that rule were to be changed, the Legislature would have to change it.

This is cache, read story here