Violating The Constitution Issue # 2 - Right To Public Trial

Home • D.H.S. Abuse • Wrongfull Murder Charge
Brief History of Public Trials
Case 1: Right to Public Trial
Case 2: Closure Requires a Hearing
Violating the Constitution - Issue # 1 - Jailed for being poor  
Violating the Constitution - Issue # 3 - Right To Speedy Trial

This is a picture of the Rogers County Courthouse door that denies access to the public. This sign has been there for a very long time even keeping family members out of the courtroom. The Right to Public Trial is a guaranteed Right under the Constitution for all of us in the public and the accused. The Sixth Amendment was put in place to protect us from wrong doings of Judges, Prosecutors and Attorneys that do not do there job. Does it not raise the question of what they don't want you to see ?

This is such a guaranteed Right that it is possible to even get a new Trial because of the public being denied access. There has been many thousands of people that have died trying to protect and uphold our great Constitution and for Rogers County to put a sign up telling us we are not allowed in violates the Sixth Amendment. Judges and Prosecutors take an Oath of Office to protect and uphold the Constitution.

I am asking everyone to stand up and support this Grand Jury and say enough is enough. This should never have happened but little by little, Rogers County Legal System has taken away our guaranteed Rights under the Constitution.

What if it is you next or your Son or Daughter that gets wronged by the broken legal system here in our fine community. It must concern us all, and concern must lead to action. We should NEVER look the other way and always report misconduct even if it means you might just have to take a stand for doing the right thing.

Below are some relevant cases and more information relating to guaranteed access for the public.

  U.S. Constitution: Sixth Amendment

Sixth Amendment - Rights of Accused in Criminal Prosecutions

  Amendment Text | Annotations

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

Re-Trial
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT

Important Case Links To Back This Up

Case 1: Right to Public Trial
Case 2: Closure Requires a Hearing

Brief History On Public Trials

Public Trial

"This nation's accepted practice of guaranteeing a public trial to an accused has its roots in our English common law heritage. The exact date of its origin is obscure, but it likely evolved long before the settlement of our land as an accompaniment of the ancient institution of jury trial. In this country the guarantee to an accused of the right to a public trial first appeared in a state constitution in 1776. Following the ratification in 1791 of the Federal Constitution's Sixth Amendment . . . most of the original states and those subsequently admitted to the Union adopted similar constitutional provisions. Today almost without exception every state by constitution, statute, or judicial decision, requires that all criminal trials be open to the public.

"The traditional Anglo-American distrust for secret trials has been variously ascribed to the notorious use of this practice by the Spanish Inquisition, to the excesses of the English Court of Star Chamber, and to the French monarchy's abuse of the letter de cachet. All of these institutions obviously symbolized a menace to liberty. . . . Whatever other benefits the guarantee to an accused that his trial be conducted in public may confer upon our society, the guarantee has always been recognized as a safeguard against any attempt to employ our courts as instruments of persecution." 29 The purposes of the requirement of open trials are multiple: it helps to assure the criminal defendant a fair and accurate adjudication of guilt or innocence, it provides a public demonstration of fairness, it discourages perjury, the misconduct of participants, and decisions based on secret bias or partiality. The Court has also expatiated upon the therapeutic value to the community of open trials to enable the public to see justice done and the fulfillment of the urge for retribution that people feel upon the commission of some kinds of crimes. 30 Because of the near universality of the guarantee in this country, the Supreme Court has had little occasion to deal with the right. It is a right so fundamental that it is protected against state deprivation by the due process clause, 31 but it is not so absolute that reasonable regulation designed to forestall prejudice from publicity and disorderly trials is foreclosed. 32 The banning of television cameras from the courtroom and the precluding of live telecasting of a trial is not a denial of the right, 33 although the Court does not inhibit televised trials under the proper circumstances. 34

The Court has borrowed from First Amendment cases in protecting the right to a public trial. Closure of trials or pre-trial proceedings over the objection of the accused may be justified only if the state can show "an overriding interest based on findings that closure is essential to preserve higher values and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest." 35 In Waller v. Georgia, 36 the Court held that an accused's Sixth Amendment rights had been violated by closure of all 7 days of a suppression hearing in order to protect persons whose phone conversations had been taped, when less than 2^1/2 hours of the hearing had been devoted to playing the tapes. The need for openness at suppression hearings "may be particularly strong," the Court indicated, due to the fact that the conduct of police and prosecutor is often at issue. 37 However, an accused's Sixth Amendment-based request for closure must meet the same stringent test applied to governmental requests to close proceedings: there must be "specific findings . . . demonstrating that first, there is a substantial probability that the defendant's right to a fair trial will be prejudiced by publicity that closure would prevent, and second, reasonable alternatives to closure cannot adequately protect the defendant's fair trial rights." 38

The Sixth Amendment guarantee is apparently a personal right of the defendant, which he may in some circumstances waive in conjunction with the prosecution and the court. 39 The First Amendment, however, has been held to protect public and press access to trials in all but the most extraordinary circumstances, 40 hence a defendant's request for closure of his trial must be balanced against the public and press right of access. Before such a request for closure will be honored, there must be "specific findings . . . demonstrating that first, there is a substantial probability that the defendant's right to a fair trial will be prejudiced by publicity that closure would prevent, and second, reasonable alternatives to closure cannot adequately protect the defendant's fair trial rights." 41

I urge you to tell everyone you know about this web site and submit your information to help us get enough signatures to bring a Grand Jury to fix the wrong doings that are going on here in Rogers County.

I urge you to tell everyone you know about this web site and submit your information to help us get enough signatures to bring a Grand Jury to fix the wrong doings that are going on here in Rogers County.