Miami Herald Pub. Co. v. Lewis

• Decision Date: 02 September 1982
• Docket Number: No. 59392,59392
• Parties: 8 Media L. Rep. 2281 The MIAMI HERALD PUBLISHING CO., etc., et al., Petitioners, v. Royce R. LEWIS, et al., Respondents.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 1

426 So.2d 1

8 Media L. Rep. 2281

The MIAMI HERALD PUBLISHING CO., etc., et al., Petitioners, v. Royce R. LEWIS, et al., Respondents.

No. 59392.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Sept. 2, 1982.

Rehearing Denied March 2, 1983.

Parker D. Thomson, Sanford L. Bohrer and Richard J. Ovelmen of Paul & Thomson, Miami, James D. Spaniolo, Gen. Counsel, The Miami Herald, Miami, and Florence Beth Snyder, Gen. Counsel, Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc., West Palm Beach, for petitioners.

Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and Lucy H. Harris, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for respondents.

Barry Scott Richard of Roberts, Miller, Baggett, LaFace, Richard & Wiser, Tallahassee, for The Florida Press Ass'n and The Florida Soc. of Newspaper Editors, amicus curiae.

ADKINS, Justice.

The matter before us has been certified as of great public importance by the Fourth District Court of Appeal in the case of Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Lewis, 383 So.2d 236 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980). We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.

The questions certified are:

(1) HOW CAN THE TRIAL COURTS MEANINGFULLY INCLUDE THE MEDIA AT EVIDENTIARY HEARINGS CONVENED TO DECIDE WHETHER THE MEDIA SHOULD BE PRECLUDED FROM ACCESS TO THAT VERY SAME EVIDENCE?

(2) SHOULD THIS COURT ABANDON THE THREE-PRONGED STANDARD WHICH WE ADOPTED IN MIAMI HERALD v. STATE IN VIEW OF THE HOLDING IN GANNETT ?

The district court held that in light of pretrial publicity, the trial judge in the murder trial of Brooks John Bellay properly ordered closure of a hearing on a motion to suppress Bellay's confessions, but that the judge improperly sealed records pertaining to the suppression hearing.

The facts upon which the trial judge based his order closing the hearing and sealing the record are as follows. Fourteen-year-old Brooks John Bellay became the focal point of an investigation into the murder of four-year-old Angel Halstead. Angel's disappearance, the search for and discovery of her body, and the investigation into her murder were all extensively covered by local news media. Bellay was interviewed and quoted widely by the print and broadcast media, perhaps because of his active role in the search and his seemingly intimate knowledge of the crime. Bellay was questioned by police shortly after Angel's body was found. He gave them four inculpatory statements. The details of the search, the killing, and Bellay's confession were widely reported by the press, as were certain of Bellay's pretrial hearings. Dozens of articles and several videotapes of television broadcasts were presented by Bellay's attorney to the trial judge. The tapes and articles made numerous and repeated references to Bellay and included interviews with him and quotations from him. The public had been made aware, by the news media, that Bellay had confessed to the crime. The public was virtually inundated with information detailing the crime.

Petitioner's position in the matter is that this Court should formally adopt the so-called "three-pronged test" for closure of judicial proceedings, and that press participation in closure motions poses no threat to the fair administration of justice. See Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. State, 363 So.2d 603 (Fla. 4th DCA 1978). The three-pronged test would impose the following requirements on an order to close a pretrial hearing.

1. Closure is necessary to prevent a serious and imminent threat to the administration of justice;

2. No less restrictive alternative measures than closure are available; and

3. Closure will in fact achieve the court's purpose.

Respondent, on the other hand, argues that we should abandon the three-pronged standard in view of the holding of the United States Supreme Court in Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 443 U.S. 368, 99 S.Ct. 2898, 61 L.Ed.2d 608 (1979). Respondent further argues that there are certain situations that warrant exclusion of the press from pretrial suppression hearings. Respondent finally argues, as an alternative to the three-pronged test, that the following requirements be imposed on closure of a pretrial hearing.

1. Closure is necessary to prevent a serious and imminent threat to the administration of justice;

2. No alternatives are available, other than change of venue, which would protect a defendant's right to a fair trial; and

3. Closure would be effective in protecting the rights of the accused, without being broader than necessary to accomplish this purpose.

We adopt the three-pronged test proposed by respondent.

The precise question raised in this case is whether a trial court in a criminal proceeding has the authority to exclude the public and press from a pretrial suppression hearing in order to assure the defendant a "speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." U.S. Const. amend. VI.

In considering this question, we must delicately balance the competing yet fundamental rights of an accused to a fair trial by an impartial jury, and of the free press guaranteed by the first amendment. The inherent conflict between these two rights is a difficult one to resolve, and in so doing, we seek a solution that gives maximum importance to both interests.

An additional factor that must be considered is the inherent power and interest of the court in guaranteeing to the litigants the fundamental right to a fair trial. The question then, is three dimensional, dealing with the power and authority of the court, the rights of the defendant, and the rights and interests of the public and the press.

Generally speaking, an accused who seeks to exclude the news media from a judicial proceeding does so based on the sixth amendment right to a "speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." U.S. Const.amend. VI. Although this has been recognized to be a fundamental right of one accused of a crime, Spinkellink v. Wainwright, 578 F.2d 582 (5th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 976, 99 S.Ct. 1548, 59 L.Ed.2d 796 (1979); United States v. Columbia Broadcasting System Inc., 497 F.2d 102 (5th Cir.1974); it is also clear that freedom of the press is a basic right and must be weighed in the balance when fair trial rights are being considered.

Courts have the inherent power "to preserve order and decorum in the court room, to protect the rights of the parties and witnesses and generally to further the administration of justice." State ex rel. Gore Newspapers Co. v. Tyson, 313 So.2d 777, 782 (Fla. 4th DCA 1975) (overruled English v. McCrary, 348 So.2d 293 (Fla.1977), citing People v. Hinton, 31 N.Y.2d 71, 334 N.Y.S.2d 885, 286 N.E.2d 265 (1972), cert. denied, 410 U.S. 911, 93 S.Ct. 970, 35 L.Ed.2d 273 (1973). "This power exists apart from any statute or specific constitutional provision and springs from the creation of the very court itself; it is essential to the existence and meaningful functioning of the judicial tribunal." Id. at 781.

We held in State ex rel. Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. McIntosh, 340 So.2d 904 (Fla.1977), that the public should generally have unrestricted access to all judicial proceedings, id. at 908, and we recognize that the news media, even though not a party to litigation, has standing to question the validity of an order restricting publicity because its ability to gather news is directly impaired or curtailed. Id. "Nevertheless, a trial court has the inherent power to control the conduct of the proceedings before it, and it is the trial court's responsibility to protect a defendant in a criminal prosecution from inherently prejudicial influences which threaten [the] fairness of his trial and the abrogation of his constitutional rights." Id. at 909, citing United States v. Dickinson, 465 F.2d 496 (5th Cir.1972) (footnotes omitted).

Two recent United States Supreme Court decisions pertinent to the issues are Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 443 U.S. 368, 99 S.Ct. 2898, 61 L.Ed.2d 608 (1979) and Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555, 100 S.Ct. 2814, 65 L.Ed.2d 973 (1980). In Gannett, defense attorneys for two men charged with murder moved to close a pretrial suppression hearing to the press and public. The defendants' lawyers argued that adverse publicity had jeopardized their clients' fair trial rights. The motion was not opposed by the prosecutor and was not objected to by the representative of the petitioner newspaper. The trial judge ultimately granted defendants' motion, concluding that the interests of the press and public were outweighed by defendants' right to a fair trial. The trial judge found that an open suppression hearing would pose a "reasonable probability of prejudice to these defendants...." 443 U.S. at 376, 99 S.Ct. at 2903. The Supreme Court of the State of New York vacated the trial court's orders holding that the exclusionary orders transgressed the public's vital interest in open judicial proceedings and constituted an unlawful prior restraint in violation of the first and fourteenth amendments. Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 55 App.Div.2d 107, 389 N.Y.S.2d 719 (1976).

On appeal, the New York Court of Appeals upheld the exclusion based on the danger to the defendants' fair trial rights, which rights overcame the presumption of openness surrounding criminal trials. Gannett Co., Inc. v. DePasquale, 43 N.Y.2d 370, 401 N.Y.S.2d 756, 372 N.E.2d 544 (1977). The United States Supreme Court in Gannett considered two aspects of the access issue. As to the sixth amendment, the Court held that "members of the public have no constitutional right under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to attend criminal trials." 443 U.S. at 390, 99 S.Ct. at 2911.

The Court, while declining to rule on the first amendment claims, concluded that the actions of the trial judge were consistent with any right of access that may have been available under the first and fourteenth amendments.

Several factors lead to the conclusion that the actions of the trial judge here were...