Court Opinion

ID: 9716966
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:55:07.274353+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:50.375352
License: Public Domain

Wilkins, J.
(concurring). I agree with most of what the court has said. Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555 (1980), did not involve the closing of a trial, or a portion of a trial, which involved a minor victim of a sex crime. Various Justices noted that the right to a public trial was not absolute, recognizing that overriding or countervailing interests might overcome the general principle that a criminal trial must be open to the public.1 We have no guidance yet on whether the mandatory closing of all criminal trials during the testimony of minor victims of sex crimes is permissible under the First Amendment. Justice Stewart recognized that “the sensibilities of a youthful prosecution witness, for example, might justify similar exclusion [at least from some segments of a trial] in a criminal trial for rape, so long as the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial were not impaired.” Id. at 600 n.5.
I am not certain that the mandatory closing of the trial of a case involving a minor victim of a sex crime during his or her testimony, as the court directs, is constitutionally permissible without specific findings by the judge that the closing is justified by overriding or countervailing interests of the Commonwealth. I question whether the findings, imputed to the Legislature, in support of closing such trials can alone justify closing a portion of all such trials. The applicability of these imputed legislative findings in each case is *853not assured. If, for example, the minor victim did not object to the trial being public during his or her testimony and the defendant wanted the entire trial to be public, or, to make the case perhaps even stronger, if the minor victim wanted the public to know precisely what a heinous crime the defendant had committed, the imputed legislative justifications for requiring the closing of the trial during the victim’s testimony would in part, at least, be inapplicable. In such a case, the reasons for closing a portion of the trial would be far less persuasive than in a case in which the victim wanted the trial closed during his or her testimony. I would require specific findings in each case before a trial may be closed during the testimony of a minor victim of a sex crime and would not foreclose the trial judge from concluding, on proper findings, that a trial should be entirely public.

 See Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555 (1980) (Chief Justice Burger, joined by Justice White and Justice Stevens); id. at 584 (Justice Brennan, concurring, joined by Justice Marshall); id. at 598 n.5 (Justice Stewart, concurring).