Closed courtrooms

A Kentucky judge earlier this week granted a local newspaper’s request to unseal records in a juvenile sexual abuse case that sparked widespread support for the victim after she publicly identified her alleged attackers.

Jefferson District Court Chief Judge Angela McCormick Bisig also ruled that all proceedings held in the case will be open to the public and allowed the news media to photograph in the courtroom.

A court proceeding to determine whether an 11-year-old Pennsylvania boy killed his father’s pregnant fiancée and her unborn son will remain closed to the public, a state appellate court ruled last week.

The Superior Court of Pennsylvania affirmed a juvenile court order that the delinquency proceeding of Jordan Brown, now 13, should remain closed because the government's interest in protecting the privacy of juveniles outweighs the public's right of access to the proceeding.

The New York court system released guidelines this week to help ensure public access to family proceedings, following a news report that the explicitly recognized right is regularly violated.

“The court must be mindful of the presumption of open access before excluding any person from a Family Court proceeding,” said A. Gail Prudenti, chief administrative judge of the New York courts, in a memorandum to administrative judges statewide.

A Tennessee judge earlier this week granted a media coalition’s request to unseal court documents and proceedings in a case that prompted heightened scrutiny of international adoptions.

Torry Hansen failed to convince the court that a lawsuit seeking child support from her on behalf of the 9-year-old boy she adopted but then abruptly returned to his native Russia should be shielded entirely from public view. Some records related to the child’s adoption history will remain sealed to protect his privacy, however.

A federal judge in Texas rejected a local journalist's request today to open to the public a status hearing in U.S. v. Aldawsari, a case in which a Saudi Arabian man is accused of plotting to attack several U.S. targets.

A military officer rejected a defense request Thursday to close an upcoming hearing for the Fort Hood, Texas, shooting suspect after the defense claimed pre-trial publicity would impede a fair trial.

A federal appeals court judge abruptly closed the courtroom just a minute after arguments began today in the case of a Guantanamo Bay detainee, The Blog of Legal Times reported.

The former leader of a prominent Mexican drug cartel was sentenced to 25 years in prison during a closed hearing on Wednesday, The Houston Chronicle reported.

Osiel Cardenas Guillen had pleaded guilty to killing two U.S. federal agents and a Cameron Country sheriff’s deputy. Much of his case has taken place in closed hearings and many of the documents have been sealed -- Wednesday’s hearing was no exception.