Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1980

Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia

448 U.S. 555 | 100 S. Ct. 2814 | 65 L. Ed. 2d 973 | 1980 U.S. LEXIS 18

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Takeaway

In short, Richmond Newspapers established that the First Amendment presumptively guarantees public and press access to criminal trials, so a court may not close a trial without findings identifying an overriding interest and showing why closure is necessary.

Background

After a Virginia murder defendant, Stevenson, was convicted, the Virginia Supreme Court reversed because a bloodstained shirt had been improperly admitted. His next two trials ended in mistrials. At the start of a fourth trial, Stevenson's lawyer asked to exclude everyone from the courtroom to prevent information about testimony from reaching jurors during recesses. The prosecutor did not object, and the trial judge ordered the courtroom cleared under a Virginia statute allowing exclusion of persons whose presence would impair a fair trial.

Richmond Newspapers reporters were present when the closure order issued. Later that day, the newspaper sought to have the order vacated. The judge excluded the reporters from the hearing on that motion as well, denied relief, and continued the trial in closed court. The judge made no particularized factual findings that closure was necessary and did not consider alternatives such as sequestration, witness exclusion, continuances, or other measures. The trial ended when the court struck the prosecution's evidence and acquitted Stevenson.

The newspaper was permitted to intervene after the trial and sought mandamus, prohibition, and appellate relief in the Virginia Supreme Court. That court denied relief. Richmond Newspapers then sought review in the U.S. Supreme Court, challenging the closure as a violation of the public's and press's constitutional right to attend criminal trials.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the Supreme Court had appellate jurisdiction over the Virginia Supreme Court's decision, and whether it could review the case through certiorari.

Holding

No appellate jurisdiction lay because the state statute's validity was not explicitly challenged below; however, the Court treated the papers as a certiorari petition, granted certiorari, and reviewed the constitutional claim.

Reasoning

The newspaper argued in the Virginia courts that the Constitution limited the trial judge's exercise of discretion, but it did not explicitly and timely contend that Virginia's closure statute itself was unconstitutional. That distinction mattered because direct appellate jurisdiction required a properly presented challenge to the validity of a state statute under the Federal Constitution.

The Court nevertheless had authority to consider the claim by certiorari. Under 28 U.S.C. § 2103, it treated the jurisdictional papers as a petition for certiorari and granted review of the asserted First and Fourteenth Amendment right of access.

Issue #2

Whether the case became moot when the closed criminal trial ended and Stevenson was acquitted.

Holding

No. The dispute was capable of repetition yet evading review.

Reasoning

Criminal trials are ordinarily too short for a closure order to receive full appellate review before the trial ends. The practical end of this particular trial therefore did not eliminate the controversy for Article III purposes.

Because the Virginia Supreme Court had declined plenary review, other Virginia judges could foreseeably close trials on similarly sparse showings. The recurrence of short-lived closure orders justified review even though the newspaper could no longer attend Stevenson's completed trial.

Issue #3

Whether the First and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee the public and press a right to attend criminal trials.

Holding

Yes. A presumptive right of public and press access to criminal trials is implicit in the First Amendment and applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.

Reasoning

The Court traced an unbroken Anglo-American tradition of open criminal trials from English common law through colonial America and the Founding period. At the time of the First Amendment's adoption, criminal trials were understood to be proceedings open to all who wished to observe, not merely proceedings in which the accused possessed a personal public-trial right.

That history reflected enduring practical values. Open proceedings discourage perjury, official misconduct, bias, and arbitrary decisionmaking; allow the public to assess whether justice is being fairly administered; and promote public confidence in the courts. Public observation also provides a civic and educational function, particularly after serious crimes that generate broad community concern.

The First Amendment protects more than the later publication of information. The freedoms of speech and press would be seriously diminished if government could arbitrarily bar the public from observing the governmental proceedings about which citizens and journalists seek to speak and report. The right to assemble, listen, observe, and receive information also supports treating a courtroom as a traditionally public place.

The Court distinguished Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, which held that the Sixth Amendment's public-trial guarantee is personal to the accused and did not give the press or public an enforceable right to attend a pretrial suppression hearing. Richmond Newspapers concerned the distinct First Amendment right of access to the criminal trial itself. The press has no greater right than the public, but it commonly serves as the public's surrogate by reporting what it observes.

Issue #4

Whether the trial judge could close Stevenson's criminal trial solely on the defendant's unopposed request, without findings that closure was necessary or consideration of alternatives.

Holding

No. Absent an overriding interest articulated in findings, a criminal trial must be open to the public.

Reasoning

The accused's Sixth Amendment right to a public trial does not create a reciprocal right to a private trial. Agreement by the defendant, prosecutor, and judge could not by itself overcome the public's independent First Amendment interest in attending the proceeding.

The record contained no findings showing that closure was needed to secure a fair trial. The judge referred generally to prior mistrials, possible leakage of information to jurors, the small-community setting, and the distracting layout of the courtroom, but did not identify a concrete threat that required excluding the entire public and press.

The court also failed to consider less restrictive measures. Witnesses could have been excluded or sequestered, and jurors could have been protected from outside information through sequestration or other familiar trial-management tools. Because no overriding interest was articulated in findings and alternatives were not assessed, the closure order violated the First Amendment. The Court did not attempt to define every circumstance in which a criminal trial, or part of one, may properly be closed.

Concurrences

Justice White

Reasoning

Justice White joined the Chief Justice's opinion. He wrote separately to stress that the issue would not have arisen had Gannett construed the Sixth Amendment to bar exclusion of the public from criminal proceedings except in narrow circumstances. Because Gannett rejected that approach, he agreed that the Court had to resolve the First Amendment question and concurred in the Chief Justice's analysis.

Justice Stevens

Reasoning

Justice Stevens described the decision as a watershed because, in his view, it was the Court's first clear holding that acquiring newsworthy information receives constitutional protection. Earlier decisions had suggested that a nondiscriminatory restriction on access to information fell outside First Amendment scrutiny so long as the press was treated no worse than the public.

He reasoned that arbitrary governmental concealment of information about government operations abridges freedom of speech and press. Criminal trials are a central governmental process, and the complete absence of record justification for this closure made the constitutional violation especially clear.

Justice Brennan

Reasoning

Justice Brennan, joined by Justice Marshall, agreed that the First Amendment independently protects public access to criminal trials. He emphasized the Amendment's structural role in preserving informed democratic self-government, not merely its protection of expression between a speaker and a listener.

Under his approach, a claimed right of access has particular force when there is both an enduring tradition of openness and a specific functional value to access in the governmental process at issue. Criminal trials satisfied both considerations: they have historically been open, and public scrutiny promotes fair factfinding, restrains judicial abuse, demonstrates equal administration of justice, and sustains public confidence in the legal system.

Justice Brennan concluded that Virginia's statute was unconstitutional because it permitted closure at the unfettered discretion of the judge and parties. He did not attempt to identify all interests that might justify closure in a properly framed case, but held that the entrenched tradition and structural importance of open trials created a powerful presumption against the statute's discretionary closure regime.

Justice Stewart

Reasoning

Justice Stewart concluded that the First and Fourteenth Amendments plainly give the public and press a right of access to trials, both criminal and civil. In his view, a courtroom is by definition a public place, and public presence helps assure the integrity of judicial proceedings.

He also stressed that access is not absolute. Trial judges may impose reasonable limits to preserve order, accommodate finite courtroom capacity, and protect fair-trial interests; representatives of the press must receive access when capacity restrictions are necessary. But the judge here gave no recognition to the public's access right at all, so reversal was required.

Justice Blackmun

Reasoning

Justice Blackmun concurred because his prior partial dissent in Gannett had maintained that the Constitution strongly protects the public character of criminal proceedings. He welcomed the Court's renewed reliance on the history of open trials and its clarification of dicta in Gannett that had created uncertainty about whether trials themselves could be closed.

He continued to believe that the public-trial protection should be located in the Sixth Amendment, rather than derived from a collection of First Amendment, assembly, Ninth Amendment, and implied-rights theories. Still, given Gannett's contrary Sixth Amendment holding, he concluded that the First Amendment must provide at least some protection for public access to trials.

Justice Blackmun cautioned that the several opinions did not supply a fully clear and uniform closure standard. Nevertheless, the public's substantial interest in knowing how criminal justice is administered made the closure in this case unconstitutional.

Dissents

Justice Rehnquist

Reasoning

Justice Rehnquist rejected the premise that either the First or Sixth Amendment gives the public or press a constitutional right to attend a trial when the defendant and prosecutor consent to closure and the trial judge approves it. In his view, no constitutional provision fairly authorized the Court to subject such state-court closure decisions to additional federal constitutional review.

He also objected to the plurality's reference to unenumerated rights and the Ninth Amendment. The fact that open trials have a deep historical tradition and are desirable as a policy matter did not, in his view, transform public access into a judicially enforceable constitutional right against the States.

More broadly, he warned that the Court was concentrating excessive authority over state judicial administration in the federal judiciary. State judges also have a duty to uphold the Constitution, and he believed federalism counseled against displacing their judgment absent a specific constitutional prohibition.