Blind justice

"We don’t have cameras in some places,” she said. “Our panic buttons are hard-wired in.” The warning devices could be inoperable during a power failure To address these concerns and others, court officials have asked The City Council and the mayor to authorize expenditures for purchasing additional cameras for security surveillance as well as to fund installation of wireless panic alarms in the offices. Brewer and Chief Judge Louise Alderson declined to discuss the security upgrades.

How important are those security cameras? Brewer noted that if the city had them installed, the city could have documented with video evidence the Jan. 26 arrest by ICE agents of Argimiro Hernandez-Garcia. Carmen Benevides said agents from the federal agency were “screaming” at both Hernandez-Garcia and her during the incident in the lobby of the court facility. But there is no camera there.

The two court leaders also noted that they are moving toward “softer” security innovations. Those include more video conferencing for arraignments. That reduces the number of prisoners requiring transportation to and from local and county jails as well as state prisons, reducing costs and lowering risks.

What will these security improvements cost? That’s unclear right now.

Funding could come out of the court’s budget or from the city’s building improvement fund. Randy Hannan, Mayor Virg Bernero’s spokesman, said officials are still crunching the numbers.

The court is not the only agency seeking funding for cameras.

The Lansing Police Department wants $75,000 for body cameras. That technology has been highlighted in national debates following the high-profile shootings of unarmed black teenagers and attacks on police officers. President Barack Obama has endorsed the adoption of the technology. Of concern with the cameras will be how long the video will be maintained by the city and how it might be released to the public under Freedom of Information Act requests. Both could be costly to the city.

Civil liberties groups also express some reservations about the cameras’ use, citing the tension between citizen privacy and the benefit of police accountability.