Opinion ID: 364177
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Bench Trials

Text: 45 Rule 7-107 also prohibits lawyers' comments about pending criminal bench trials. The considerations that led us to conclude that a properly drawn rule could constitutionally limit comments about pending criminal jury trials do not apply to cases tried by a court without a jury. Application of such a rule would be appropriate during the investigation, grand jury, arraignment, and other pretrial proceedings. But when it becomes apparent that the case is to be tried by a judge alone, we see no compelling reason for restricting lawyers' comments in order to assure a fair trial. Pretrial publicity has not been shown to be a source of interference to fair bench trials. Cases which have been reversed because of such publicity have invariably been tried by juries. See, e. g., Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333, 86 S.Ct. 1507, 16 L.Ed.2d 600 (1966); Estes v. Texas, 381 U.S. 532, 85 S.Ct. 1628, 14 L.Ed.2d 543 (1965); Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U.S. 717, 81 S.Ct. 1639, 6 L.Ed.2d 751 (1961). 46 Judges necessarily must consider evidence that has no direct bearing on the guilt or innocence of the accused. They must determine whether to suppress confessions and other evidence. When this evidence is excluded, they must nevertheless adjudge the accused to be guilty or innocent without considering the evidence which they have heard and held to be inadmissible. This record does not disclose what comments a lawyer could make about a pending case that would be more prejudicial than the information a judge must consider as he separates the wheat from the chaff during the course of an ordinary bench trial. 47 It is unlikely that lawyers' comments could threaten the fairness of a bench trial, and this record does not indicate that they have. Moreover, we cannot assume that such comments would influence a judge to make unfair rulings against either the accused or the state. The suggestion that such an inference could be drawn from publicity highly critical of a judge was rejected in Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U.S. 331, 349, 66 S.Ct. 1029, 1038, 90 L.Ed. 1295 (1946), where the Court said: In this case too many fine-drawn assumptions against the independence of judicial action must be made to call such a possibility a clear and present danger to justice. 48 Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 559, 85 S.Ct. 476, 13 L.Ed.2d 487 (1965) does not require a different conclusion. In Cox the Court sustained the validity of a statute that punished picketing or parading in or near a courthouse with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge . . . . In reaching its conclusion, the Court emphasized that it was not dealing with free speech alone but with expression mixed with particular conduct picketing and parading. In contrast to the statute under consideration in Cox, Rule 7-107 prohibits pure speech alone. Consequently, Cox is not persuasive authority for applying this rule to bench trials. 49 It is not enough that the rule is rationally related to fair bench trials. The gain in such trials must outweigh the loss of first amendment rights. See Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 362, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976). Here the evidence discloses that the gain to fair bench trials is minimal, and the restriction on first amendment rights is substantial. We therefore conclude that with respect to bench trials the rule is unnecessarily broad. Since it does not satisfy the second part of the test prescribed by Martinez, 416 U.S. at 413, 94 S.Ct. 1800, its inclusion of bench trials is unconstitutional. But see Chicago Council of Lawyers v. Bauer, 522 F.2d 242, 256-57 (7th Cir. 1975).