Gannett Company, Inc. v. DePasquale (1978)
- Docket
- 77-1301
- Decided
- 1978-01-01
Summary
Question: Did the press and members of the public have a constitutional right under the Sixth Amendment to attend the trial? Conclusion: The Court held that members of the public had no right to attend criminal trials under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court noted that judges had "an affirmative constitutional duty" to minimize the effects of prejudicial pretrial publicity, and that closure of pretrial proceedings was an effective method to do so. The Court found that the Sixth Amendment, while granting defendants the right to a public trial, did not imply a public right of access to trials. The Court added that since the suppression of the transcript was only temporary, no violation of the First Amendment had occurred.