Court Opinion

ID: 9539878
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:11:19.354604+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:26.652186
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE HUNT,
dissenting:
I dissent and would reverse and throw out the contempt charges against the reporter. This nation was founded upon the idea that all governmental proceedings should be conducted in the open under the scrutiny of the public eye. I therefore cannot sign the eloquent and thorough majority opinion because, however practical its reasoning, it reinforces the trend toward excluding private citizens from participation in their government.
When a judge determines that a closed hearing is appropriate, as the judge did here, it is up to him or her to ensure that members of the public cannot enter the courtroom. A member of the public entering an ineffectively closed courtroom would certainly disturb the proceedings and each entry would require a statement of the judge that the hearing was closed. Any inquiry by the citizen as to why he or she had to leave would subject him or her to contempt of court charges.
If the judge in this case had positioned a bailiff at the courtroom door or had posted a sign notifying the public that the proceeding was closed, this incident could have been prevented. If the newspaper editor, when notified of the closure, had followed the procedures set forth in the majority opinion to determine the purpose of the closure rather than sending his reporter back into the skirmish, the confrontation could have been averted. I fear that Melody Perkins was merely a pawn in the game between the press and the court.
And the consequence of this game? A case that holds that any member of the public can be ousted from a secret governmental *323meeting that appears to be an open meeting and subsequently cannot return to what still appears to be an open meeting and ask why. Whatever her motive or reason for returning, when she respectfully and quietly reentered the courtroom, Melody Perkins was exercising a right she had as a citizen. The exercise of that right in that manner cannot be contempt. I would dismiss and throw the whole affair out of court.