Opinion ID: 1427176
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Practical Differences

Text: There is a significant practical difference between prejudicial publicity at a criminal trial and at a preliminary hearing. In a trial, including the jury voir dire, the identities of the jury or jury panel are known. There are several methods to shield this relatively small group from prejudicial information: they can be instructed not to read or listen to news reports for a period of time, or if necessary, they can be sequestered. But in a pretrial proceeding, the jury is not yet known. There is no possible way that information reported at a pretrial proceeding and disseminated into the community can be kept from potential jurors. Our procedure allows a defendant to be bound over upon evidence that will not be admissible at trial. Rule 7(d)(1), U.C.A., 1953, § 77-35-7(d)(1) (1982 Repl. Vol.), provides in part: The findings of probable cause may be based on hearsay in whole or in part. Objections to evidence on the ground that it was acquired by unlawful means are not properly raised at the preliminary examination. Because the preliminary examination occurs prior to the time that the defendant may properly raise the issue of ultimate admissibility, it is inevitable that some prejudicial information will be presented in many hearings. It is true that persons who hear or read prejudicial information thus disseminated can be excluded from the jury. But at the very least, dissemination of such information into the community biases the jury panel in that it becomes necessary to exclude citizens who carefully read news reports or who are interested in following current events. There is another important practical difference between trials and preliminary hearings. By the time of trial, an independent magistrate has made the determination that there is probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed and that the defendant is the person who committed it. Prior to the preliminary hearing, no such determination has been made. The charges are brought solely at the discretion of the prosecutor. One of the purposes of the preliminary hearing is to subject the charges to an independent magistrate to screen out those that are unfounded and to thereby preserve the accused's reputation from public humiliation. This purpose is defeated if the preliminary hearing is public. There is no practical way to prevent this. The magistrate could not know before she held the hearing whether or not she would find probable cause; that was the purpose of the hearing. She could only open or close the hearing based on a guess as to whether there would be evidence to sustain the charges.