Opinion ID: 3011956
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Applicability to Article III Proceedings

Text: In Richmond Newspapers, 448 U.S. at 555, the Supreme Court held that the press and public possess a First Amendment right to attend criminal trials. In that seminal case, the police arrested a man and tried him for murder. During his fourth trial (the first had been reversed on appeal, and the second and third were declared mistrials), the defendant’s counsel moved that it be closed to the public so as to avoid yet another instance of jury contamination. The prosecutor had no objection, so the judge ordered that the Courtroom be kept clear of all parties except the witnesses when they testify. Id. at 560. Two newspaper reporters sought to vacate the closure order on First Amendment grounds, arguing that the court had made no evidentiary findings prior to issuing its order and also had failed to consider other, less drastic measures within its power to ensure a fair trial. The Supreme Court held that as [t]he Bill of Rights was enacted against the backdrop of the long history of trials being presumptively open, id. at 575, the right of the press and public to attend criminal trials is implicit in the guarantees of the First Amendment. Id. at 580. It therefore struck down the closure order. Critical to the Court’s holding was evidence of an unbroken, uncontradicted history of public access to criminal trials in Anglo American law running from before the Norman Conquest to the present, and it emphasized that it had not found a single instance of a criminal trial conducted in camera in any federal, state, or municipal court during the history of this country. Id. at 565-73. 12 The Court also explained that this tradition of openness was no quirk of history; rather, it had long been recognized as an indispensable attribute of the trial process. Id. at 569. The open trial gave assurance that the proceedings were conducted fairly to all concerned, and it discouraged perjury, the misconduct of participants, and decisions based on secret bias or partiality. Id. Equally important was its prophylactic effect, which discouraged vigilantism by providing an outlet for community concern, hostility, and emotion. Id. at 571. The Richmond Newspapers First Amendment right of access to criminal trials, therefore, stemmed from an uncontradicted history, supported by reasons as valid today as in centuries past. Id. at 573. In his pragmatic concurrence, Justice Brennan concluded that: [T]wo helpful principles may be sketched. First, the case for a right of access has special force when drawn from an enduring and vital tradition of public entree to particular proceedings or information. Such a tradition commands respect in part because the Constitution carries the gloss of history. More importantly, a tradition of accessibility implies the favorable judgment of experience. Second, the value of access must be measured in specifics. Analysis is not advanced by rhetorical statements that all information bears upon public issues; what is crucial in individual cases is whether access to a particular government process is important in terms of that very process. Id. at 589. Despite Justice O’Connor’s admonition that Richmond Newspapers does not have any implications outside the context of criminal trials, Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 U.S. 596, 611 (1982), a majority of the Court has since adopted Justice Brennan’s language as a test of at least somewhat broader application. In Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court, 478 U.S. at 1 (Press-Enterprise II), the Court held that there is a First Amendment right of access to preliminary hearings. Id. at 13. In so doing, it formalized what has come to be known as the Richmond Newspapers experience and logic test: 13 First, because a tradition of accessibility implies the favorable judgment of experience, we have considered whether the place and process have historically been open to the press and general public. . . . Second, in this setting the Court has traditionally considered whether public access plays a significant positive role in the functioning of the particular process in question. Id. at 8 (citations omitted). The Court recognized that [t]hese considerations of experience and logic are, of course, related, for history and experience shape the functioning of governmental processes. Id. at 9. Nevertheless, it made clear that relation is not tantamount to equivalence, and it independently applied both prongs of the test to preliminary proceedings. The Court first noted that, like criminal trials, pretrial proceedings had long been conducted before neutral and detached magistrates [and had] been open to the public. Id. at 10. Indeed, during Aaron Burr’s trial for treason in 1807, Chief Justice Marshall conducted a probable-cause hearing in the Hall of the House of Delegates in Virginia, the courtroom being too small to accommodate the throng of interested citizens. Id. Although several states had allowed preliminary hearings to be closed on the motion of the accused, even in these states they had been presumptively open and were closed only for cause shown. See id. at n.3. The Court therefore concluded that open preliminary hearings had been accorded the favorable judgment of experience. Id. at 11 (citation omitted). It then asked whether public access played a particularly significant positive role in pretrial proceedings, and found in the affirmative. Because of its extensive scope, the preliminary hearing is often the final and most important step in the criminal proceeding. Id. at 12. In fact, in many cases the preliminary hearing provides the sole occasion for public observation of the criminal justice system, and the absence of a jury makes the importance of public access . . . even more significant. Id. at 12-13. Because preliminary hearings passed both parts of the Richmond Newspapers test, the Court found that the public has a First Amendment right of access in that context. It had reached the same conclusion regarding voir dire 14 examinations in Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court, 464 U.S. 501 (1984) (Press-Enterprise I). Given that a majority of the Supreme Court has applied the Richmond Newspapers framework to pretrial proceedings and voir dire examinations, that approach clearly is not confined to the criminal trial itself, although each of the Supreme Court’s applications has arisen in the criminal context. This Court has been less reticent in its extensions. First, in Publicker Industries, Inc. v. Cohen, 733 F.2d 1059 (3d Cir. 1984), we applied Richmond Newspapers and held that the First Amendment implicitly incorporates a right of access to civil trials. Our conclusion rested on the finding that the public’s right of access to civil trials and records is as well established as that of criminal proceedings and records, id. at 1066, and we noted that [a]s early as 1685, Sir John Hawles commented that open proceedings were necessary so that truth may be discovered in civil as well as criminal matters. Id. at 1067 (citation omitted). We then found that, under the logic prong, openness has similar salutary effects in civil and criminal trials, and concluded that the same First Amendment right of access extends to each.3 Id. at 1070.