I'm intrigued. If you were to try taking photos in a British court, youi'd be thrown into the cells faster than you could say "O J Simpson"...
Are there no restrictions in US??
And, I assume, in a British court I'd be presumed guilty until I could somehow convince the court otherwise, right?
I can't speak of a blanket law that affects photography in courts in the U.S. but think it largely depends on the court in question, primarily the judge. (Remember the OJ Simpson murder trial and Judge Ito, and how he loved being on tv...)
Certainly I had permission from the judge, and I took several rolls of film while in court. The subject of my story was the judge, and in most of my shots which also included defendents I made a reasonable attempt to mask their identity. Most of the images were to be made available to a graphic designer who was going to create a photo-illustration for a feature story in a newspaper. I took a few portrait type shots before court was in session, then switched to an old Pentax manual 35mm camera for available light shots later. Less intrusive that way, but I still had to move around and look for good angles. I shot photos for around 10 minutes, then was done. Court lasted 3 hours. It's all about making the right arrangements, and being as fair and honest with the situation as possible. All folks in the court were informed as to what I was doing, and were allowed to opt out if they wanted.
It's amazing how few people chose to opt out. The same thing when I did a story on a local county jail facility and the prisoners all opened up to me and agreed to be photographed for the story.
Hope that answers most of your questions.
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