That's actually fairly standard. Character evidence is usually impermissible in court. Although it can sometimes be brought in, and if it is that would open the door to any contrary character evidence. E.g. if a witness was to testify that the accused was an honest person, any prior acts of dishonesty would then be permissible as evidence, but if no testimony as to the honesty of the accused had been made, any "prior bad acts" testimony would be excluded as it would be more prejudicial than probative. As this case has significant political/ideological motivation behind it, I would expect shenanigans from the prosecutor and judge. I don't think they are streaming this trial. The streaming of trials is one of the best ways to limit the shenanigans of prosecutors and judges, exposing their actions to the public is very effective. They know they are doing the wrong thing, but they assume that people just not find out about it and presume that someone found guilty really is. However, it is very common for prosecutors to abuse this in order to aim for conviction rather than to search for justice. This is an important but almost universally ignored ethical principle. The role of the prosecutor is NOT to secure the conviction of the accused, but to present the facts of the matter in the search for justice. Only if those facts, including any exculpatory evidence (See: Brady v. Maryland), prove the defendants guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. As someone who watches US trials a bit, I have seen that the chances of conviction of a clearly innocent person for a serious crime (e.g. murder) are somewhere around 50%. This is largely due to prosecutorial misconduct and judicial misconduct combined with fucking stupid juries.