Court Opinion

ID: 9537418
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:17:57.663178+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:39.471737
License: Public Domain

HOWELL, J.,
dissenting.
I agree with that portion of the majority opinion which holds that ORS 419.498(1) grants wide latitude to the juvenile judge to admit or exclude the press from juvenile hearings. I also agree with the majority’s reasoning that privacy would promote the goals of juvenile justice and that publicity could have an adverse affect on the child’s rehabilitation. I do not agree with the remainder of the decision that ORS 419.498(1) is unconstitutional because it violates article I, section 10, of the Oregon Constitution.
Our task is to determine the intention of the framers of our constitution in enacting article I, section 10, and I do not believe that they intended to prohibit the legislature from closing certain trials or hearings to the press and public in the interest of justice.
*291The majority concludes that article I, section 10, applies to all judicial proceedings, guarantees individuals the right to a public trial, and also guarantees the public that all trials be "public” trials, by conferring upon the press and the public an absolute and unrestricted right to attend juvenile hearings and civil trials. I do not believe that either the language or the history of article I, section 10, supports the majority’s position.
Article I, section 10, is concerned with the administration of justice in all cases both civil and criminal when it states that "no court shall be secret but justice shall be administered, openly and without purchase * * The very next constitutional provision, article I, section 11, refers to criminal prosecutions and guarantees the accused the right to a "public trial.” Although the drafters could have explicitly stated that the public shall be admitted to all civil and criminal judicial proceedings, they did not use such language in article I, section 10. In article I, section 11, however, the drafters specifically said: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall have the right to public trial * * *.” If the majority is correct, that the drafters intended article I, section 10, to contain a constitutional right of public attendance at all civil and criminal court proceedings, then the constitutional right of an accused to a public trial contained in article I, section 11, is redundant and unnecessary. On the contrary, I believe that the reason the drafters provided an accused with a right to a public trial in article I, section 11, is because they did not mandate that all trials be public trials in article I, section 10.
Furthermore, I do not believe that constitutional and statutory history supports the position of the majority. In 1862, just five years after the constitutional convention of 1857 adopted article I, section 10, the Oregon Legislature Assembly adopted Oregon’s first Code of Civil Procedure, which contained the following statute:
*292"The sittings of every court of justice are public, except as provided in this section. Upon the agreement of the parties to a civil action, suit or proceeding, filed with the clerk or entered upon the journal, the court may direct the trial of an issue of law or fact, or any other proceeding therein, to be private; and upon such order being made, all persons shall be excluded except the officers of the court, the parties, their witnesses and counsel.” Chapter XI, Title VII, Section 898. See Deady, General Laws of Oregon (1843-1872) 288 (1874).
This provision has been retained, virtually unchanged, in the Oregon statutes. See ORS 1.040. If the drafters of article I, section 10, intended that provision to contain an absolute right of public attendance, then it seems unlikely that some of them would have enacted the above statute with the memory of the debates of the constitutional convention still fresh in their minds.
The majority dismisses this argument by saying that
" * * * Contemporaneous legislative actions should not necessarily be given much weight when construing constitutional principles. Constitutional draftsmen are concerned with broad principles of long-range significance; legislators are more likely to be concerned with the immediate. * * *.” Majority opinion at 284 (emphasis added).
The majority, however, ignores the fact that this court has considered legislative action in construing constitional principles. For example, in State v. Finch, 54 Or 482, 103 P 505 (1909), this court held that article I, section 15, of the Oregon Constitution, declaring that laws for the punishment of crimes shall be founded on principles of reformation and not vindictive justice, does not prohibit the infliction of the death penalty as punishment for murder in the first degree. Mr. Justice McBride, delivering the opinion for a unanimous court, explained that there are three canons of interpretation that may be applied to article I, section *29315, and tested by any one of the canons, article I, section 15, does not prohibit imposition of the death penalty.
"The first test, and one to which great weight is to be attached, is contemporaneous construction, and long acquiescence by the courts and legislatures: Endlich, Interpretation of Statutes, § 527. The present constitution was framed and adopted in 1857, and the State was admitted into the Union in 1859. By the provisions of the constitution the laws of the territory of Oregon were continued in force 'so far as applicable’ under the State government. The territorial law inflicted the death penalty for murder in the first degree, and no change was made in that penalty, or in the law itself, until the adoption of the Codes of 1864, when the same law, with the same penalty was re-enacted, with some slight amendments. During the interval the death penalty was not infrequently imposed and carried into effect. Among the members of the constitutional convention were Judges Boise, Prim, Shattuck, Kelly, Kelsay and Wait, all of whom were afterwards members of the Supreme Court of this State, and all of whom, excepting Judge Kelly, performed circuit duty. It is part of the judicial history of this State that all of these eminent jurists either pronounced the sentence of death while upon circuit duty, or participated in affirming such judgments when sitting upon the supreme bench. Rousseau well observes that 'He who made the law knows best how it ought to be interpreted,’ and this judicial and legislative recognition of the validity of capital punishment by the very men who framed the constitution ought itself to be sufficient answer to the contention of defendant’s counsel.” Id. at 496-97.
The fact that article I, section 10, which states that no court shall be secret, was followed almost immediately by a legislative enactment providing for nonpublic trials in civil cases indicates, I believe, that the drafters of the constitution did not intend "secret” to mean that the court should always be open to the press and public in all cases. Since the adoption of article I, section 10, and the enactment of the 1862 *294statute providing for private court proceedings, the legislature has enacted other statutes allowing for private proceedings in the interests of justice. For example, in 1937 the legislature provided that the issue of paternity in bastardy-filiation proceedings be determined in a private hearing. Or Laws 1937, ch 324, § 1; ORS 109.155)1). The legislature also permits private guardianship proceedings for those alleged to be incapacitated. ORS 126.103(5). And, because of the sensitive nature of a rape trial, the legislature permits a private court hearing to determine the admissibility of evidence of the sexual character of the rape victim. ORS 163.475(4). These are just a few examples of court proceedings where, in the interests of justice, the legislature has determined the press and public may or should be excluded.
The majority holds, and I agree, that the legislature believed that privacy in juvenile hearings would promote the ends of justice. I would hold that the legislature may therefore provide for the closing of juvenile hearings to the press and public without violating article I, section 10,.
I would dismiss the writ.