Justice for All: Designing Accessible Courthouses (recommendations from the Courthouse Access Advisory Committee)

Summary

A federal advisory committee's best-practice recommendations for accessible courthouses, including which assistive listening technology suits courtrooms, jury rooms and jury assembly areas.

Key findings

• Recommends infrared as the preferred assistive listening system for courtrooms because privacy matters; portable systems may serve some areas, but the courtroom itself needs a permanent system.
• Lists FM as usable indoors or outdoors, covering up to several hundred feet and highly portable, but says its signal passes through walls, so it may be used in the jury orientation room but not the jury deliberation room.
• Lists infrared as usable in the courtroom and jury deliberation room, with receivers compatible with most infrared systems, but notes that many infrared systems work only indoors and that obstacles between emitter and receiver interrupt the signal.
• States that FM, infrared and induction loop systems give the same amount of understanding when they are of good quality, so the choice depends on other factors such as confidentiality.
• Calls a permanently installed induction loop an inexpensive option for jury assembly areas, and lists loop drawbacks: receivers for people without telecoils, possible spill into adjacent rooms from large loops, and susceptibility to electrical interference.
• Recommends that systems serve the whole courtroom, including the jury box, bench, counsel tables and jury deliberation rooms, and names failure to maintain equipment and missing signs among common errors.
• Notes that all the systems it discusses require the person who is speaking to use a microphone, and that the system is required to serve the gallery.
• Says jury deliberation rooms usually have no amplification, so a permanent system is not required there, but access should be provided for a juror with hearing loss; a small loop with signs helps at security and information counters even without glazing.
• Its best practice says assistive listening systems should serve all areas of the courtroom, including the jury box, jury deliberation rooms, judge's bench and staff areas, counsel tables and conference rooms, and it lists use in the jury orientation room, courtroom and jury deliberation room among infrared's advantages.
• Its introduction to assistive listening systems states: "All of them require that the person who is speaking use a microphone."

Limits

Best-practice recommendations, not a regulation (the report says so), written in 2006 before Auracast and Wi-Fi streaming. Its statement that the technologies give equal understanding cites no study. Date from the report's cover (PDF version); the web page itself shows no date.

Read the original

www.access-board.gov/ada/additional-resources/designing-accessible-courthouses.html

Link checked 9 October 2026. We link to the original and do not host copies.

Cited in

• Which hearing devices can receive which systems?Open
• Which systems satisfy the ADA and building codes, and does a listener's own phone count?Disputed
• Auracast, hearing loop, infrared, RF or Wi-Fi: which suits which room?Disputed
• How many receivers and neckloops does each code require, and how should a loan pool be run?Partly answered
• What do listeners prefer, and how often do they use venue systems?Partly answered
• Where do hearing loops fall short: metal, spill, noise and upkeep?Partly answered
• Where does infrared assistive listening work, and where does it fall short?Partly answered
• Which radio bands can venue FM and RF systems use, and what limits them?Partly answered
• What does each system cost to install and to run over its life?Open
• How do listeners learn that a venue has assistive listening, and which signs and symbols do the rules ask for?Partly answered
• What works in courtrooms, council chambers and other meeting rooms where speech must be heard by all and kept in the room?Partly answered

Cite this source

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