“Rembrandts,” muttered the electric-coiffed boxing promoter Don King as he entered the courtroom. He had just spotted Aggie Whelan Kenny and her fellow artists lined up with their pads and pencils, pens, crayons, oil sticks and watercolors at his 1984 arraignment on federal tax evasion charges.

Never mind jurors (who would acquit Mr. King but convict his longtime secretary). Famous or notorious defendants must also trust their fates to courtroom illustrators, their verdicts both suitable for framing and ineligible for appeal.

Otherwise, in the absence of cameras, how are we to remember trips to the bar of justice by the likes of the boss of bosses John Gotti; David Berkowitz, the “Son of Sam”; John Lennon’s assassin, Mark David Chapman; the “preppy killer” Robert E. Chambers; the accused drug lord El Chapo; or, for that matter, Donald J. Trump on the witness stand for his New Jersey Generals in a 1986 civil suit against the National Football League? (Mr. Trump prevailed but won damages of just $3.)