THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT RULES THAT VOIR DIRE SHOULD BE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

The Supreme Court yesterday reversed the Georgia drug conviction of Eric Presley due to the judge’s refusal to allow Presley’s uncle to be in the courtroom, or even on the same floor of the DeKalb County Courthouse during jury voir dire.

The Sixth Amendment, among other things guarantees “the right to a speedy and public trial.” The trial judge stated that he did not want jurors to be put into a position where they might hear out of court statements related to the case. The Georgia Supreme Court in upholding the trial court said that the trial judge had the power to prevent jurors from hearing potentially prejudicial statements.

But the United States Supreme Court found that the Georgia Supreme Court’s holding could prevent the public from viewing voir dire in all cases and it would invalidate the Sixth Amendment. The Court admitted that there might be some cases in which the public could be prohibited from attending voir dire. But in such cases the court would have to make a specific finding that an overriding interest requires exclusion of the public from voir dire. Also the trial cases must make a finding that there are no alternative methods to prevent the specific damage that would be caused by voir dire being open to the public.

In this case the Georgia court made no attempt to find an alternative method to allow the public to view the voir dire and therefore the court reversed the conviction.