Tag Archives: courtroom art

Courtroom art documenting a Minneapolis police misconduct trial, as Derek Chauvin’s trial begins.

Courtroom drawing by Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum summer 1994 Lt Mike SauroMike Sauro.

Lt. Mike Sauro’s 1994 police misconduct civil trial was a big deal in Minneapolis. I was a courtroom artist for the CBS affiliate, WCCO-TV, in the ’90s, and I was there for much of it.

I strongly encourage those are interested in the Minneapolis police department and its history of misconduct and brutality trials to read this report by Human Rights Watch. It details events in Sauro’s tenure as well as other cases brought against the department. Sauro was involved in multiple cases; I only covered the police misconduct civil lawsuit filed by Craig Mische. The drawing of Sauro above is from that.

The jury found the city liable for “maintaining a custom of deliberate indifference to complaints about excessive force in the department.”

Courtroom drawing by Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum June 17 1994Above, Craig Mische, seated with his attorney.

Mische was awarded 750K in compensatory and punitive damages for the battering he received. He looked a little like Robert Chambers, which bothered me as he was clearly the victim in this case. I think I captured his emotions well despite it.

I also recommend this recent article in Minnesota Reformer about how Minneapolis has historically protected its cops who are involved in police brutality cases.

I logged thousands of hours in the Hennepin County courthouse, listening to testimony, attorneys and expert witnesses.

Courtroom drawing by Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum ca 1992 McKenzie trialThe juries, judges and courtroom officers in the Minneapolis courts were virtually all white, in the ’90s.

It was obviously a terrifying and grossly injust place to be for BIPOC and particularly Black people. Even the stenographers and us four courtroom artists for the tv stations were all white.

Courtroom drawing by Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum ca 1992 1993 witness in red attorney with boxI tried to draw the way the atmosphere of white supremacy in the courtroom harmed and othered Black people.

Courtroom drawing by Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum ca 1992I was always aware of the “Minnesota Whiteness” in my drawings; I didn’t know enough to do anything except try to represent it, then.

Rachel Ketchum aka Suzanne Forbes courtroom drawing for WCCO TV 1990sI think this drawing of a teenager the state wanted to try as an adult is probably the truest thing I ever made in the courtroom.

I wasn’t supposed to be editorial, or political, but of course I was, where I could be. The reporter I was working with on a given day sometimes asked me to draw particular people, so my editorial powers were limited.

Win or lose, defense attorneys wanted to buy my drawings of them, as did expert witnesses and police forensic specialists and out-of-town Federal prosecutors and NFL players called to the stand in an anti-trust trial. But not Sauro.

I have never been good at concealing dislike, which is probably why Mike Sauro wasn’t interested in buying his drawing!

So I still have it, and was able to find it, at this moment when it is part of the throughline of police brutality in Minneapolis and a cop culture that doesn’t seem to have ever changed. But maybe it’s time, and maybe there can be a reckoning, finally.

I desperately hope there will be justice for George Floyd.

Unicorn Riot has very good on-the-ground Minneapolis police coverage and is where I will be following the events in the Twin Cities over the next weeks.

I’ll try and get some more of these courtroom drawings photographed soon. I didn’t have a camera in those days, and of course there were no camera phones. So until this moment, the only documentation of these drawings that existed was the footage the WCCO-TV cameraperson shot for the night’s news. And the station kept all that footage on BETAMAX tape.

I am incredibly grateful to my Patreon Patrons, whose monthly financial support makes it possible for me to take time to document my art archives.

Until today, no modern media record of these drawings existed – if we had a fire or flood they would just be gone forever.

 

Archive post: We The Jury and the story of how I became a courtroom artist.

Rachel Ketchum courtroom drawing mid 1990s jury and monitorI always enjoyed drawing the jury.

It was permitted in most trials, and it gave me something to do when there was no-one of significance testifying. Someone on Instagram commented on how they enjoyed the “earnest” and detailed representation of 90s fashion in my courtroom drawings.

To which I replied, look, I was exactly the same freak then as I am now. That wasn’t “earnest”, it was editorial! It was my critique of their Minnesota style choices (and a commentary on their inevitable whiteness). I myself considered having to put on semi-respectable clothes for working in the courtroom a form of costume, in order to “pass”.

Most courtroom artists don’t draw the jury in any detail or try to get their likenesses or clothing, because they don’t have time.

Rachel Ketchum courtroom drawing mid 1990s juryBut I could do it, because from the beginning, I was twice as fast as everybody else.
Rachel Ketchum courtroom drawing mid 1990s jury and prosecutorHow did I get started as a courtroom artist? Well, somebody died.

I was in my second year at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, having moved to Minnesota to continue treatment for my drug and alcohol addiction and decided to stay for a while. My Illustration teacher suggested that since I could draw so fast and was good at likenesses, maybe I should contact one of the local tv stations about doing courtroom illustration work.

Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum first courtroom drawing St Paul 1991He knew I wanted to draw comics, but he thought it would be a good way to get paid for drawing til I broke in. He was right.

I took an afternoon and went to the courthouse, made a couple sample drawings, and contacted the stations. I met with the news producers at a couple of them, and they liked my work. I was called in to work on my first trial pretty soon afterwards. And one of the stations, WCCO, the CBS affiliate, claimed me as their own right away.

Edit April 22, 2022: Found one of those sample drawings! The drawing above is, I believe, the first courtroom drawing I did. Sadly, it shows the same Minnesota structural violence as all the others: a Black defendant and witness, with white attorney and court members.

The drawing below shows the audience in the courtroom, not the jury. There were almost never Black people in the jury.

Rachel Ketchum courtroom drawing mid 1990s court audienceIt turned out there was a gap in the local courtroom artist pool.

There were four local stations in the Twin Cities in the mid-90s, WCCO (CBS), KSTP (ABC), KARE (NBC) and an independent whose call sign I can’t remember. There were also four local courtroom artists, or had been for some years. Each artist worked mostly for a particular station. Right before I contacted the stations, one of them died. Of old age!

Courtroom artists are hired by the press, not the courthouse; there’s a common misconception that courtroom artists are like court reporters, who are the stenotype operators who transcribe speech for the court’s records.Courtroom drawing Rachel Ketchum early 90s for WCCO TV court reporter and witness

Why was there so much courtroom illustration work in the Twin Cities, at a time when Court TV was exploding in popularity?

Because Minnesota happens to be one of the most restrictive states in the US regarding cameras in the courtroom. Almost every state was allowing local proceedings to be broadcast starting in 1991, but not Minnesota. In the 90s, cameras were almost never permitted in trials at the state level and absolutely never in the Minnesota Federal courthouses. So if the TV stations wanted images to go with their reporting like TV stations in other states had, they needed courtroom artists!

That’s right, I had my first professional art career because of the state I randomly landed in when I wanted to go to the best halfway house.

Courtroom drawing Rachel Ketchum early 90s for WCCO TV defense attorneyPretty crazy, right? But I was really fortunate, because I was damn good at the work, everyone loved my courtroom drawings, and I wound up doing work for the CBS National News and selling drawings to CNN and the local papers when I was barely out of art school. I was settled in an art career that paid handsomely before I even graduated.

There were only three problems: I wanted to draw comics, I wanted to leave Minnesota, and I am a sexual assault survivor.

Working in the courtroom wasn’t sustainable for me in the long run, even if I hadn’t been giving every spare minute to breaking into comics.

I couldn’t handle covering the endless violence against women and children; I was burning out by the time I got my first comics job in 1994. I tried to do both for a few months, because I felt terrible leaving the station with no-one to call. I had worked for them for three years, and I was really fond of the reporters and producers and my fellow courtroom artists.

And I was afraid that if I quit, the artist who would replace me would be a man and that would be one more man in the audience the rape survivors would have to look out at as they testified.

But I got offered a full-time job as the regular penciller on a monthly Star Trek book.

Being the regular penciller on an ongoing monthly book is about as good as it gets for comic artists, and I was thrilled beyond words. It had been my dream since I was seventeen, what I’d been working towards for years. So I had to tell WCCO I was done. I went to the station and collected the drawings that were still there, in a storage room, and brought them home. It’s drawings from that batch that I’m photographing and documenting now.Courtroom drawing early 1990s Rachel Ketchum for WCCO T V witness

You can see the previous post of courtroom drawings here.

I didn’t have a camera, and of course there were no camera phones. So until this moment, the only documentation of these drawings that existed was the footage the WCCO-TV cameraperson shot for the night’s news. And the station kept all that footage on BETAMAX tape. So, I am incredibly grateful to my Patreon Patrons, whose monthly financial support makes it possible for me to take time to document my art archives.

Until today, no modern media record of these drawings existed – if we had a fire or flood they would just be gone forever.