Court Opinion

ID: 9585632
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:02:21.93589+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:44.645973
License: Public Domain

Rosellini, J.
(concurring in part, dissenting in part)— The majority today grants the press and news media an absolute right to publish and broadcast lawfully obtained information. Majority opinion, at 378. Because the notion that any right is absolute conflicts with basic constitutional analysis, delegates, unwisely, judicial responsibility for protecting individual rights and celebrates the rhetoric of prior restraint over the substantive values inherent in First Amendment analysis, I dissent from part IV of the majority opinion.
The majority's assertion that Const, art. 1, § 5 guarantees an absolute right is inconsistent with constitutional analysis from our court. In each of our prior decisions involving confrontation between the press and other constitutional rights, we have recognized the vital need to balance conflicting rights. See, e.g., Seattle Times Co. v. Ishikawa, 97 Wn.2d 30, 640 P.2d 716 (1982) (court must weigh competing interests of defendant and public); Federated Publications, Inc. v. Swedberg, 96 Wn.2d 13, 16, 633 P.2d 74 (1981), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 984 (1982) (right of access must be balanced against the right of a person accused of a crime to be tried by an impartial jury); Federated Publications, Inc. v. Kurtz, 94 Wn.2d 51, 64, 615 P.2d 440 (1980) (courts must weigh competing interests). These decisions reflect this court's clear preference for accommodation of conflicting interests. An absolute right to publish permits no accommodation.
The majority justifies its approach on the theory of independent state grounds. The majority asserts that article 1, section 5 grants greater rights to the press under our state constitution than does the First Amendment.
The majority's reliance on the doctrine of independent state grounds is misplaced. Although a state may grant *387greater protections under its state provisions, it may not do so if the effect of granting greater protection to one right is to derogate another constitutional right. This elementary fact was recognized in a case relied upon by the majority, Alderwood Assocs. v. Washington Envtl. Coun., 96 Wn.2d 230, 243-44, 635 P.2d 108 (1981). There, we observed:
Although we read section 5 and amendment 7 as not requiring the same "state action" as the Fourteenth Amendment, that does not mean those provisions are applicable to all speech and initiative activities. If there were no limitations to their application, every private conflict involving speech and property rights would become a constitutional dispute. Note, Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center: Free Speech Access to Shopping Centers Under the California Constitution, 68 Cal. L. Rev. 641, 659 (1980). Such an approach would deny private autonomy and property rights in the same way as the "state action" requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment denies free speech. To endorse either approach would ignore the validity of certain constitutional rights and would be inconsistent with the balancing approach generally employed in resolving First Amendment and property rights conflicts.
(Footnote omitted.)
By granting an absolute right to broadcast this information, the majority "ignore[s] the validity" of the defendant's Sixth Amendment rights and the privacy rights of participants in the judicial process. This our court cannot— constitutionally — do. This fact is most obvious in the context of conflicts with Sixth Amendment rights. Of this right, the United States Supreme Court has said: "No right ranks higher than the right of the accused to a fair trial." (Italics mine.) Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court, — U.S__, 78 L. Ed. 2d 629, 104 S. Ct. 819, 823 (1984). The absolutist approach taken by the majority would prevent a trial judge from protecting Sixth Amendment rights, and to that extent our independent state grounds analysis is constitutionally prohibited.
I do not believe, however, that the majority purposefully intends to vitiate Sixth Amendment rights. It is likely that *388the majority presumes that broadcast of information already admitted into evidence at trial can never, seriously, prejudice a defendant. I am not so wise nor so willing to assume that we have foreseen all the ways in which evidence may be used or all the consequences of its use.
My uneasiness stems, in part, from the majority's insistence that the press may publish the evidence in whatever form it is introduced in trial. Implicit in this holding is the belief that the news media will judiciously utilize the evidence presented in court. Given the potency certain forms of evidence take, I cannot agree with the majority's abrogation of its duty to protect an individual's constitutional rights.
Consider the variety of information introduced in criminal trials. Criminal trials frequently involve the introduction of gruesome or obscene photographs and of taped conversations between participants in criminal activity. These items may not be overly prejudicial. But consider also some of the more dramatic forms evidence may take: the video tapes of rape scenes filmed by sexual psychopaths, the dramatic emergency calls between victims and county dispatchers, and the stark and distressing, but frequently necessary, photographs of an autopsy. All of these items are subject to the rule promulgated by the majority. Yet, the broadcast of any one of these items has the potential for causing irreparable prejudice to a defendant or grievous invasion of a victim's privacy. Nonetheless, the rule suggested by the majority binds the hands of trial judges and leaves them helpless to protect these rights.
Even if we were to assume, as does the majority, that evidence admitted in court cannot be overly prejudicial to a defendant, and even if we were to assume, as the majority must, that the trial court has no obligation to protect the privacy interest of the participants in a trial, we would still be left with a rule that allowed potential infringement upon Sixth Amendment rights. This premise can be demonstrated by examining a news media access case from Florida. Green v. State, 377 So. 2d 193 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. *3891979). In Green, the defendant established a previous history of incompetency that for 8 months prevented her from being able to stand trial. When, after extensive treatment, she became competent, her lawyer moved to prohibit television coverage of the trial. He argued that the added stress of being belittled not only in court but on television, before her family, friends and the community, would lead to a return of her mental incompetency. Psychiatric testimony was offered, which, if believed, established that television coverage of the event would lead to a psychotic breakdown. The Florida court ruled that the trial court committed reversible error in allowing the news media to broadcast the trial without first conducting an evidentiary hearing. In discussing the effect broadcasting of a trial would have on the defendant, the court observed:
It also seems clear that the advent of electronic media coverage of a criminal trial carries with it, at times, the risk of rendering a borderline competent defendant incompetent to stand trial and that a case involving such a defendant must be handled with special care by the trial court. A mentally disturbed, but technically competent defendant, like any other defendant, must face a much greater public exposure if his trial is televised. As a result, he is almost certain to suffer a greater level of anxiety than he would if his trial were not televised. This increased anxiety may impair his ability to consult with counsel during trial with a reasonable degree of rational understanding or it may impair his rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him. If either event be the case, the defendant has, in our view, demonstrated prejudice under [In re Post-Newsweek Stations, Florida, Inc., 347 So. 2d 402, 347 So. 2d 404 (Fla. 1977)], so as to exclude electronic media coverage of the judicial proceedings in the case. To rule otherwise would be to sanction the trial of a competent defendant rendered incompetent by electronic media coverage, a result which our law does not and cannot permit.
Green, at 200.
Although the present case involves the out-of-court usage of evidence rather than television coverage of the event itself, the Florida court's discussion of the trial *390court's duty to protect a borderline competent defendant from unnecessary stress which could return her to a state of incompetency is apropos. This analysis reflects the importance of Sixth Amendment rights in our system of government and coincides with sentiments most recently expressed by the United States Supreme Court. See Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court, supra. To protect these rights, we must leave room for the law to develop on a case-by-case basis. Absolute rights permit no such growth.
Finally, the majority's dogmatic prior restraint approach celebrates form over substance, in that it is itself violative of the underlying goal of encouraging free and open communication which inheres in First Amendment analysis. The majority uncritically views the issue as an open and shut prior restraint case. This analysis not only ignores much of the recent criticism of the prior restraint doctrine, see, e.g., Jeffries, Rethinking Prior Restraint, 92 Yale L. Rev. 409 (1983); Mayton, Toward a Theory of First Amendment Process: Injunctions of Speech, Subsequent Punishment, and the Costs of the Prior Restraint Doctrine, 67 Cornell L. Rev. 245 (1982), it also infringes upon the goal of open communication.
Consider the consequences of the majority's rule. The majority's analysis "guarantees an absolute right" to publish information that is admitted into evidence and presented in open court. Majority opinion, at 378. By its decision to ignore the manner of communication, the court also guarantees the right to broadcast information in the form the information takes in court. Thus, to avoid infringement on a defendant's Sixth Amendment rights or the privacy rights of participants,8 the court must close the *391courtroom and prohibit access to the information.9 Such a result is absurd. Lesser remedies, like enjoining broadcast of the tapes, but allowing publication of the transcripts, provide open access to the proceedings and encourages the free exchange of information, while protecting the rights discussed above. See, e.g., Barnett, The Puzzle of Prior Restraint, 29 Stan. L. Rev. 539 (1977).
Because I believe that MaymeRuth Coe has not established a substantial infringement on her Sixth Amendment rights, I concur in the result reached by the majority. But because I fear the consequences of any absolute rule, I dissent from part IV of the majority opinion.
Dore, J., and Cunningham, J. Pro Tem., concur with Rosellini, J.

In Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court,_U.S._, 78 L. Ed. 2d 629, 104 S. Ct. 819 (1984), the United States Supreme Court explicitly recognized the importance of these rights. Chief Justice Burger, writing for the majority, observed first that
The jury selection process may, in some circumstances, give rise to a compelling interest of a prospective juror when interrogation touches on deeply personal matters that person has legitimate reasons for keeping out of the
*391public domain.
104 S. Ct. at 825. After discussing the importance of these rights, the Court implicitly condoned limited closure of voir dire to protect those privacy rights. Chief Justice Burger wrote:
When limited closure is ordered, the constitutional values sought to be protected by holding open proceedings may be satisfied later by making a transcript of the closed proceedings available within a reasonable time, if the judge determines that disclosure can be accomplished while safeguarding the juror's valid privacy interests. Even then a valid privacy right may rise to a level that part of the transcript should be sealed, or the name of a juror withheld, to protect the person from embarrassment.
104 S. Ct. at 825-26.

Unlike the majority, the United States Supreme Court does not view free press rights as absolute. In Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 U.S. 596, 606, 73 L. Ed. 2d 248, 102 S. Ct. 2613 (1982), Justice Brennan, writing for the majority, highlighted the importance of public trials but warned, "Although the right of access to criminal trials is of constitutional stature, it is not absolute."