Court Opinion

ID: 9569344
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:13:04.069024+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:50:23.824606
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Frantz
concurring:
I am in accord with everything that is said in the opinion of Mr. Justice Moore. However, I would make some observations which I believe give perspective to my concurrence. I am so motivated by the fact that a number of state appellate courts have, in my opinion, inverted the meaning of the constitutional right to a public trial.
Article II of the Constitution of Colorado is our Bill of Rights. Section 16 of the Bill of Rights provides:
“In criminal prosecutions, the accused shall have the right to * * * a speedy public trial...”
This is a substantial constitutional right guaranteed to one charged with crime and only to be waived by the accused.
There has been a tendency on the part of appellate courts to order exclusion of the public and to admit only certain persons to hear the trial of criminal cases where unsavory details may be brought out in the evidence. This is clearly an inversion of this important constitutional provision.
I am firmly convinced that a public trial means that the trial shall be open to the public and that exclusion, if necessary because of circumstances (such as the tender years of one who would like to hear a sensational case), should apply only to individuals properly ex-cludable; that the converse should not be the case, i.e., the exclusion of the public and the admission of only certain persons to hear the trial.