Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court

Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court

Opinion

 [*598]  [***251]  [**2615]    JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

 Section 16A of Chapter 278 of the Massachusetts General Laws, ² as  [***252]  construed by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, requires trial judges, at trials for specified sexual offenses involving a victim under the age of 18, to exclude the press and general public from the courtroom during the testimony of that victim. The question presented is whether the statute thus construed violates the First Amendment as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.

 [****6]  [**2616]   I

The case began when appellant, Globe Newspaper Co. (Globe), unsuccessfully attempted to gain access to a rape trial conducted in the Superior Court for the County of Norfolk, Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  The criminal defendant in that trial had been charged with the forcible rape and forced unnatural rape of three girls who were minors at the time of trial -- two 16 years of age and one 17. In April 1979, during hearings on several preliminary motions, the trial judge ordered the courtroom closed. ³ Before the trial  [*599]  began, Globe moved that the court revoke this closure order, hold hearings on any future such orders, and permit appellant to intervene "for the limited purpose of asserting its rights to access to the trial and hearings on related preliminary motions." App. 12a-14a. The trial court denied Globe's motions, ⁴ relying on Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 278, § 16A (West 1981), and ordered the exclusion of the press and general public from the courtroom during the trial. The defendant immediately objected to that exclusion order, and the prosecution stated for purposes of the record that the order was issued on the court's "own motion and not at  [****7]  the request of the Commonwealth." App. 18a.

Within hours after the court had issued its exclusion order, Globe sought injunctive relief from a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. ⁵ [****8]  The next day the justice conducted a hearing, at which the Commonwealth, "on behalf of the victims," waived "whatever rights it [might] have [had] to exclude the press." Id., at 28a. ⁶ Nevertheless,  [*600]  Globe's request for relief  [***253]  was denied. Before Globe appealed to the full court, the rape trial proceeded and the defendant was acquitted.

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