Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-01-25
PRIVACY OF TRIAL AND SCANDAL
MONGERS

Our evening contemporary, referring to
Just criticisms by the people generally
made upon it concerning It's assault some
time ago upon local Courts, on the assump-
ton that a divorce case of an ordinar :
character, was tried with closed doors,
under the law providing for privacy
because of the wealth and prominence
OF the parties says: "We recognize
no law that would permit the richest
woman in the land to have any more pre-
negatives in a Court than should be allowed
to the poorest beggar that walks the
streets"
Abstractedly the paragraph enunciates,
foridly, a correct sentiment, but the con-
text and its defensive character rob it of
virtue. Unfortunately, too for the as
stunned indignation it represents, there is no
law that permits the rich greater privileges
than the poor. There is venality in high
and wickedness in low places; Judges are
sometimes untrue to their solemn obliga-
lions, jurors prove false to their oaths, wit
nesses perjure themselves, and men in all
walks are found who sell themselves to
evil, but the law is impartial in spirit and
in letter.
To assaults upon the law, and the pro-
mitigation of false and dangerous interpre-
tations of it by a portion of the press. is
due most of the discomfort that finds its
outcome in organized lawlessness. We
mean to say that these and similar attacks
breed contempt for orderly government,
lead men into radical socialism and an
archy, and are at the root of UNANIMOUSLY
systematized schemes to subyert the laws
and sap the foundations of society. The
wild and senseless raving that there are
laws partial and favoring one class as
against another is unfortunately accepted
by large number, who are thus educated
into contempt for inalienable rights.
and that bitterness of feeling against
forms Of government which leads
inevitably to revolt against free
institutions. The unfortunate crea-
lures in Chicago who were swept into
the whirlpool of Anarchism were led BY
precisely such demagogic and false doe
trine into attempts to overthrow the law
and destroy its machinery. In every case
such vicious attacks are either the result
Of laundering ignorance of the law, or else
are to be accredited to a traitorous and
despicable intent to embitter the people
against laws of their own making. Men
who set about conscientiously to reform
errors in our system-and it is not free
from them, being a human creation-do
not proceed by such methods. The in
stance being considered-and which is
cited only in illustration of a principle
is evidently a feeble attempt to disguise a
desire to cater to a morbid and impure
taste, and not an effort to conserve public
justice, for that would call the press to
the vindication of the laws. The people
make the laws against which the railing
Is directed; if 4 different policy ought to
distinguish them, then the proper object
TO which to address protest is the law
making power itself.
A second attempt to Justify assault
upon the privacy of trial guaranteed
by the law to every citizen, leads the
REcoRD-UNIoN to now brand such mis-
guided judgment as it deserves, for in lis
natural effects it is little less than in
famous. \ single moments examination
of the law, and a very little inquiry into
the practice of the Courts, will convince
any intelligence not posing for effect and
catering to a supposed popular distrust of
the law, that the statutes of this State re-
garding secrecy Oftrials are sound aud wise.
The law encouraging privacy of trial, in
the interest of good morals and pull lie
decency, is to be found in Section 1882 of
the Political Code, which prohibits the
record of pleadings and testimony in
divorce cases being made public or in
spected by any one except the parties to
the cases or undSr an oruer OF Court.
Also, in Section rs of the Code of
Civil Procedure, which provides that
in actions for divorce, seduction or
breach of promise of marriage, the
Court may direct the trial of any issue of
fact to be private, and exclude all persons
except Court officers and the parties and
witnesses. This is the law in every State
in the Union, it is the practice in every
Court il the land and has been for years