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52 Temp. L.Q. 311 (1979)
All Courts Shall Be Open: The Public's Right to View Judicial Proceedings and Records

handle is hein.journals/temple52 and id is 317 raw text is: 1979] ALL COURTS SHALL BE OPEN: THE PUBLIC'S RIGHT TO VIEW JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS AND RECORDS * A trial is a public event. What transpires in the court- room is public property1 1. INTRODUCTION The open court concept has long been recognized in English common law.2 A Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge, in 1883, described the scope of this right to an open courtroom as follows: It involves, of course, the right of ingress and egress to and'from the place where the court is held, to suitors, jurors, witnesses and every person having business with the court. Also to all officers of the court, especially those who have immediate business with the court, as attorneys, etc. The general public also have the right of admission to the court, as they are largely interested in the public administration of law and justice.3 Courts in all American jurisdictions recognize this principle, at least to some extent. The right to a public criminal trial, guaranteed in federal criminal trials by the sixth amendment and required in state criminal trials by the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment, is no longer ques- tioned. The requirement of public civil trials, though not an enumerated or even a penumbral constitutional guarantee, is nevertheless as old as the guarantee in criminal proceedings.4 * The title of this comment is derived from William Penn's proclamation of the Duke of York's laws for Pennsylvania in 1682. The full text of the clause reads: All courts shall be open and justice shall neither be sold, denied, or delayed. AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, MINUTES OF THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL OF PENNSYLVANIA 38 (1852). 1. Craig v. Harney, 381 U.S. 367, 374 (1947) (emphasis added). 2. See, e.g., Rex v. Josephson, [1948] 1 W.W.R. 93, 94 (Canada) (it is a principle of the common law that a court must be open and public, and that if those requirements are not met there is no court and all the proceedings are void); Scott v. Scott, [1913] A.C. 417, 422-23 (Haldone, J.) (the rule of English law is that all cases must be heard in open court subject to certain specified classes of exceptions); Holt v. Willing, 9 Tasm. L.R. 70, 70 (1913) (The ordinary inci- dent of a Court of Justice is that its proceedings should be conducted in public; the broad principle being that the administration of justice shall take place in open court). 3. Pierce, All Courts Shall Be Open, 37 PITT. L.J. 362, 362 (1883). Judge Pierce was writing the account of an attorney who was forcibly restrained from entering a crowded courtroom by an obstinate officer. Judge Pierce criticized the attorney's conduct as endangering the peace of the court, but conceded the attorney's right to enter. The judge urged those who believe they are wrongly denied access to his court to seek redress from him, and not to attempt to force their ways in by colorful verbal persuasion. Id. 4. H. CRoss, THE PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW: LEGAL ACCESS TO PUBLIC RECORDS AND PROCEEDINGS 155 (1953). Sir Matthew Hale, in 1670, was probably the first (311)