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Friday, September 04, 2009

Courts - Even more on: "You don’t see newspapers fighting to open court proceedings the way they used to, and people are starting to notice"

That title is from a column by Adam Liptak of the NY Times, discussed in this ILB entry Sept. 1st, along with a story from the Louisville Courier Journal quoting from a story headed "Judge closes Stinson jury selection to media."

Well, the LCJ did fight this week. See this ILB entry from Sept. 2nd, quoting another LCJ story:

Jon Fleischaker, an attorney representing the newspaper, asked for a hearing, saying the media has a right to attend jury selection.

“The press is the eyes and ears of the public,” he told the judge.

Fleischaker noted the newspaper won a similar argument five years ago when Judge Judith McDonald-Burkman barred the media from the courtroom during jury selection in the murder trial of then Louisville Metro Police Detective McKenzie Mattingly.

Gibson asked for a copy of that ruling and the court took a break.

Later in the afternoon, she agreed to let a Courier-Journal reporter into the courtroom, but said other reporters would have to wait to enter until some potential jurors had been dismissed — only a certain number of people were allowed in the courtroom because of fire codes, she said.

Now, in what looks like a total turnaround, there is live streaming video coverage of the trial. Here is the LCJ main Stinson trial page.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 4, 2009 08:36 AM
Posted to Courts in general