United States
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution establishes the right of the accused to a public trial.
The right to a public trial is strictly enforced, but is not absolute. Trials may in exceptional cases be regulated. Closures are decided case-by-case by the judge evaluating a claimed danger to a substantial or legitimate public interest. But whatever the interest at stake, the likelihood of danger to that interest must meet a "‘substantial probability’ test". Examples of cases presenting closure issues include organized crime cases (overall security concerns), rape cases (decency concerns), juvenile cases, and through the Silent witness rule and/or Classified Information Procedures Act, cases involving sensitive or 'classified' information.
Trials may be closed at the behest of the government only if it can show "an overriding interest based on findings that closure is essential to preserve higher values and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest". The accused may also request a closure of the trial; in such a case, it must be demonstrated that "first, there is a substantial probability that the defendant's right to a fair trial will be prejudiced by publicity that closure would prevent, and second, reasonable alternatives to closure cannot adequately protect the defendant's fair trial rights".
But before a judge can close a courtroom, the judge must consider all potential alternatives to closure. This is a very strict standard; the Supreme Court has held that "trial courts are required to consider alternatives to closure even when they are not offered by the parties," or by anyone else. In other words, a judge who does not want to be reversed on appeal must be confident that there cannot possibly be any alternative to closure that might later be conjured up by some appellate lawyer.
Read more about this topic: Public Trial
Famous quotes related to united states:
“And hereby hangs a moral highly applicable to our own trustee-ridden universities, if to nothing else. If we really wanted liberty of speech and thought, we could probably get it—Spain fifty years ago certainly had a longer tradition of despotism than has the United States—but do we want it? In these years we will see.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The popular colleges of the United States are turning out more educated people with less originality and fewer geniuses than any other country.”
—Caroline Nichols Churchill (1833–?)
“What the United States does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is understand others.”
—Carlos Fuentes (b. 1928)
“We are told to maintain constitutions because they are constitutions, and what is laid down in those constitutions?... Certain great fundamental ideas of right are common to the world, and ... all laws of man’s making which trample on these ideas, are null and void—wrong to obey, right to disobey. The Constitution of the United States recognizes human slavery; and makes the souls of men articles of purchase and of sale.”
—Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842–1932)
“We now in the United States have more security guards for the rich than we have police services for the poor districts. If you’re looking for personal security, far better to move to the suburbs than to pay taxes in New York.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)