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Courtroom Art: A Twenty-Five Year Retrospective
A selection of works from the career of courtroom artist Scott Snow.
1 November - 28 November 2007
Scott Snow has an interesting story about how his career as a courtroom artist came about. He recounts, “I didn’t have a clue I’d become a courtroom artist. It wasn’t premeditated I was working as a freelance artist in Salt Lake, building a small, steady reputation. Then ‘opportunity knocked.’ The news department at KSL TV needed a courtroom artist. Did I do that sort of thing? I said I could. (But I never had.)
He then found himself in the newsroom drawing a reporter who was working on a story at his typewriter. This was Snow's audition. The verdict on his first drawing was, “I think that looks enough like him.” He was summoned to draw in court the next day. That was it. He was a courtroom artist.
One case he was assigned to involved Joseph Paul Franklin, a white supremist who was accused (and later proven guilty) of murdering two young Black men as they jogged in Liberty Park with two white girls. This was a federal trial, it was opening arguments and he was nervous and conspicuous. He explains that “…eyes glanced my way. No matter how my drawings looked when court was adjourned, they were going to be on the  six o’clock news. My palms sweat as I held my pastels…I started drawing.”
He further explains that “Looking back on that first day, the drawings I produced were quite stiff and too concerned with true spatial proportions. I was doing one inch tall heads with clumsy, fat pastels. I had to learn through trial and error what would ultimately work for me. As intense as courtroom art is, I began to thrive on the experience. Losing myself in the drawings, I didn’t even notice the people around me. I focused on the reporter’s request for drawings and soon knew the format and formula. To start a trial, I render a wide courtroom scene the cameraman can move through during the news report. It includes the judge, the defendant and the attorneys. I need to get all this and simultaneously draw any important witnesses. The first day can be the most intense. A drawing might take a half hour to an hour, but sometimes the window of opportunity may only be ten minutes. I had to be very fast.”
Snow works in pastels on large colored paper with a towel on his lap— a rather messy medium. He has trashed a few courtroom carpets in his day, but pastels allow him to work up the subject very quickly and are very forgiving when you need to make adjustments. He was the first to come into court in this region with pastels and large colored paper.
Snow states “With all my seat time in court, I‘ve gained an i ncredible amount of respect for our judicial system. Most of the judges I’ve seen in action are impressive, fair and impartial. They know the law. In many high profile cases things easily could have gotten out of control, but they truly keep order in their courtrooms. Some use humor during proceedings that need a moment to break the tension and allow all participants a moment to take a deep breath. For as much time as I have spent in court, I have never been present when the jury returned with a verdict. I’ve turned on the news with the rest of you. By the time the jury is deliberating, my work is done.”
He recounts his top five memorable moments as a courtroom artist:
1. A rather heavy woman with bright red hair and a green face entering the courtroom by wheelchair at the Downwinders trial. She was a victim of nuclear exposure and contracted a skin cancer as a result. She had gone with her school class to view the mushroom cloud they had heard so much about. It was an incredible visual realization of the personal damage the nuclear testing had caused. She had green skin!
2. One day after a break during the Franklin murder trial, we had been waiting longer than usual for court to reconvene, when a marshal runs into the courtroom and gets another marshal and they both run out together. That was unusual. Then another marshal ran out. Apparently, they had “misplaced” the defendant. When we all stepped into the hall to see what was going on, we saw police and marshals fanning out all over the court complex in search of him. Everything was a potential hiding place--trash bins, cars; they were looking everywhere. It was about a half hour later when they found him holed up in an elevator shaft in a, thankfully, failed attempt to escape.
3. The day I was finally asked to hop on a plane and fly to D.C. to draw in the Supreme Court it felt like I was making a pilgrimage to Mecca, coming full circle from my youthful aspirations of becoming an artist dreamt while watching news reports of closed Senate and Supreme Court hearings But alas, it was not to be. I heard my name over the airport intercom and went to the phone only to learn that CBS had located the artist they usually used and my trip was canceled.
4. Drawing a series of pictures depicting an execution (I’ve done three). I’m usually in the newsroom in the wee hours of the morning drawing them and leaving as the sun is coming up. I’m grateful I was never asked to actually go, it was bad enough to recreate it from first hand accounts.
5. Flying to Montana to the Unabomber arraignment. It was a circus. Finally they had caught the guy who had caused so much fear.
Snow states: “This show is not only an art exhibit, but a snapshot of some very interesting history. Courtroom art is a dying profession. When I started, cameras were not allowed in the courtroom. Around 1989, the State of Utah finally allowed them and left it to the judges discretion. Most state murder trials ended there for me. But the federal court system still doesn’t allow them. I’m not called on as often as I was in the early days, but when the call comes, I go. I enjoy the challenge and the whole experience.”
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