Word: decisional
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last July in Gannett vs. DePasquale that criminal proceedings could be closed to the public, at least under some circumstances, court watchers and the press had difficulty understanding just what the decision meant.
So have the judges who must apply the decision in lower courts. As of late August, they had agreed to half of some 50 requests to close courtrooms. A few judges have barred the press but not the public; others have closed off not only pretrial hearings but actual trials...
Chief Justice Warren Burger has publicly blamed the press accounts of the Gannett case for the confusion in the lower courts. But his colleagues on the high court disagree over the meaning of the decision, which some court watchers say was carelessly written in the court's rush to...
Powell indicated that he would be sympathetic to such a First Amendment claim. Late last week, however, Justice John Paul Stevens entered the Gannett fray by pointing out that the high court has never ruled that the First Amendment guaranteed a right of access to judicial proceedings. Stevens told an...
The reason is complex, but essential to understanding Gannett. In a separate opinion handed down with the decision, Burger emphasized that the Gannett case involved only a pretrial hearing, not a trial. Since Burger's vote to allow judges to close off pretrial hearings was decisive in making up...