Secret courts are anathema to our democracy, with public access to judicial proceedings being the lynchpin to the constitutional supremacy we assign to the judiciary. Far too often, however, trial courts seek to close courtrooms or attempt to block public access to documents used in court proceedings. Surprisingly, the constitutional law governing public access to judicial proceedings is relatively undeveloped.
Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit once again took on the issue of closed courts. That case provides a useful example of the troubling tendency of lower courts to improperly close their proceedings. And the Second Circuit’s ruling comes on the heels of two other court-closure controversies, one involving the courtroom exclusion of a death-penalty opponent from a capital prosecution in Brooklyn and the other involving the sealing of consent decree compliance reports arising out of a Department of Justice case challenging conditions in a Buffalo jail.
