3/21/2021 0 Comments Robert Chambers Doll Tape
This is because the exact combination and sequence of elements on a video are considered to be the product of artistic creativity.Its possible right now to obtain a video of Bernhard Goetz telling police in Concord, N.H., how he shot four young men who surrounded him on the New York subway.Goetz had fled to New Hampshire after the shooting and turned himself in there.) There is no more graphic illustration than this of the way video is insinuating itself into American life.
Only a few years ago, the words of someone confessing to a crime were taken down in shorthand, then typed up for the culprit to sign. Now, as often as not, right after the police issue the standard Miranda warning (You have the right to remain silent....), they turn on their video camera. Many events that once were seen only by those actually present or only on the TV evening news are now available to be viewed via VCR. The Goetz confession was introduced as evidence at his trial. ![]() But commercial use of official tape is only part of the story. Videos of shocking news events also are passed around informally by people who have taped a TV broadcast. He knew the TV cameras were rolling when, in midspeech, he pulled out a gun, put it in his mouth and blew off the top of his head. Club owner David Cohen said all kinds of video scenes are shown while the music plays. The Dwyer tape or stock-car crashes (taped from cable TV) are usually intermixed with scenes of Italian Renaissance paintings or rock videos. A videotape of 21-year-old Robert Chambers pretending to strangle a doll at a party held a few days before he stood trial for strangling 18-year- old Jennifer Levin. His trial ended after he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter. A tape of Chambers describing Levins death to police was shown at the trial. And almost immediately after it was over, a homemade video surfaced that showed Chambers laughing and cavorting at a party with a half-dozen scantily clad female friends. This latter tape is particularly shocking because the women (in bikinis, lacy bras and such) had all been friends of Levin and knew Chambers was accused of killing her. The tape shows a grinning Chambers twisting the head off a doll and saying: Oops, I killed her. He picks the play title Death of a Salesman in a game of charades and acts it out by putting his hands around his own throat and then lying down. At one point in the party, a young woman says, Ill tell on you. And Chambers replies, So Ill say youre lying, and people will believe me. He laughs. When a reporter obtained a copy of the party tape (from an unnamed source), Phil Donahue televised some of it on his show and Maury Povich, host of a New York TV show, showed both the party tape and the police tape. The existence of these tapes has provoked questions such as: If your confession is turned into entertainment, can you demand a cut of the profits Can a police department or the court raise extra money by selling a videotape collection called True Confessions or Juicy Courtroom Testimony I wish I could give you all the answers with certainty, says Philadelphia attorney Robert Podwill, an expert in copyright law. But some of these questions have not yet come before a court. Most films and videos are covered by copyright law, which means you can be sued if you attempt to sell a film made by somebody else and keep the profits for yourself. Podwill says, however, that he doesnt believe a court would allow a criminal to retain the right to sell his or her own videotaped confession. The court would most likely rule that someone who confesses to the police should expect that his or her words will be made public. However, he says, copyright law probably would protect the profits of a company (or police department) when it makes videos from the confessions as well as other material (as MPI Home Video did in its Goetz tape).
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