In a world where smartphones can capture images that could be seen by millions in seconds, blocks from Rutgers Law–Camden remains one of the few places where cameras are not allowed: a federal courthouse.
For trials that remain closed to photographers, courtroom sketch artists are charged with visually translating elements of popular trials for news outlets to utilize.
The ongoing exhibition “Camden Collects,” on view in the Stedman Gallery now through Sept. 18, features various works by renowned courtroom artist Richard Tomlinson, with accompanying court transcripts from notable trials, including his first court art assignment: the Black Panther trials. 
According to Nancy Maguire, curator at the campus gallery, Tomlinson’s sketches in the exhibition are from the Black Panther 13 Pre-trial and the Black Panther 21 Trial, which was held at the New York State Supreme Court in 1970. “Twenty-one defendants were charged with attempted murder, arson, and possession of weapons, bomb-making materials and explosives,” she notes. Maguire has also recently reframed 16 other sketches by Tomlinson, depicting the trial of former Newark Mayor Hugh Joseph Addonizio, which are not part of the exhibition, but will be reinstalled in the law school this fall.
Born in Ohio, Tomlinson, who died in 2010, attended the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. and the School of Visual Arts in New York. Tomlinson’s extensive trial assignments included the Abscam case and Ariel Sharon v. Time Magazine, and General Westmoreland v. CBS and a client list that included Metromedia Television News, Fox Television News, and CNBC Business News.
While Tomlinson’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Television and Radio, the Society of Illustrators, the Art Directors Club, and the American Institute of Graphic Arts, Anne Dalesandro, now director of the law library at Rutgers–Camden, remembers the works when she was a law student.
“The sketches were hanging over cubicles in the library on the third, fourth, and fifth floors of the library,” says the ’75 alumna. “They remained in place throughout my career as a law librarian.”
This fall, the law school building committee, chaired by Professor Perry Dane, will decide where in the law school the recently reframed pieces will be re-installed.
Dalesandro says that it’s fitting for the sketches to be permanently displayed in the law school. “While not all of our students will do trial work, many will and these sketches depict part of this aspect of the practice of law. Also, the trials depicted were all quite famous, even notorious, so this adds a bit of drama.”
Aside from the approximately 20 pieces depicting New Jersey courtroom artwork on loan for permanent exhibition at Rutgers Law—Camden, the New York John Jay School of Criminal Justice has acquired the remaining Tomlinson collection.