Court Opinion

ID: 9720520
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:33:48.734765+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:18.982378
License: Public Domain

FOSHEIM, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I agree that the writ in this case should not be dismissed for mootness. I also concur in that part of the majority decision which holds that no absolute public right of access to criminal trials flows from the First Amendment. I dissent, however, from the court’s disposition of the Sixth Amendment issue. In my opinion, the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments afford the public an affirmative right of access to criminal trials.
The United States Supreme Court, in Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, — U.S. —, 99 S.Ct. 2898, 61 L.Ed.2d 608 (1979), expressly reserved the question whether the First and Fourteenth Amendments afford to the public a right of access to criminal trials. This, together with, the fact that, in my view, Gannett is limited to pretrial proceedings, compels me to part with the majority in its reliance upon Gannett as a basis for its rejection of petitioner’s First *570Amendment claim. I agree, however, that there is no such right rooted in the First Amendment. The history of the First Amendment lends, at best, only inferential support to petitioner’s claim.
The majority opinion’s rejection of petitioner’s claim that the Sixth Amendment affords the public a right of access to criminal trials, ante, at 566-567, is based upon its interpretation of certain language from Part V of the plurality decision in Gannett. That language reads: “[M]embers of the public have no constitutional right under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to attend criminal trials.” — U.S. at —, 99 S.Ct. at 2911, 61 L.Ed.2d at 628. At first blush, this language seems to support the majority’s disposition of the Sixth Amendment issue here. However, I think the character of the proceeding involved in Gannett is noteworthy. The Supreme Court frames the issue there as follows: “The question presented in this case is whether members of the public have an independent constitutional right to insist upon access to a pretrial judicial proceeding . . . .” — U.S. at —, 99 S.Ct. at 2901, 61 L.Ed.2d at 616 (1979) (emphasis added). The issue is restated near the end of the opinion in terms of pretrial proceedings. — U.S. at —, 99 S.Ct. at 2913, 61 L.Ed.2d at 630.
This causes me to question whether the language in Gannett extends to the trial itself. Such an interpretation is particularly questionable in light of Mr. Chief Justice Burger’s concurring opinion, which states: “By definition a hearing on a motion before trial to suppress evidence is not a trial; it is a pre trial hearing.” — U.S. at —, 99 S.Ct. at 2913, 61 L.Ed.2d at 630 (Burger, Chief Justice, concurring) (emphasis in original). Mr. Justice Powell’s concurring opinion casts further doubt on the proposition that there is no Sixth Amendment right of access to criminal trials. Although Justice Powell’s opinion addresses only the First Amendment question expressly reserved by the plurality, it is nevertheless couched in terms of pretrial proceedings.
Accordingly, I do not agree that Gannett is dispositive of petitioner’s Sixth Amendment claim here. The considerations which militate against recognition of an absolute right of access to pretrial proceedings under the Sixth Amendment are not as compelling with regard to the trial itself. I, therefore, dissent from that portion of the majority opinion dismissing petitioner’s Sixth Amendment claim.