How A Small-town Newspaper And Its Unlikely Lawyer Opened America’s Courtrooms

Description

Justice in Plain Sight is the story of a hometown newspaper in Riverside, California, that set out to do its job: tell readers about shocking crimes in their own backyard. But when judges slammed the courtroom door on the public, including the press, it became impossible to tell the whole story. Pinning its hopes on business lawyer Jim Ward, whom Press-Enterprise editor Tim Hays had come to know and trust, the newspaper took two cases to the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1980s. Hays was convinced that the public—including the press—needed to have these rights and needed to bear witness to justice because healing in the aftermath of a horrible crime could not occur without community catharsis. The newspaper won both cases and established First Amendment rights that significantly broadened public access to the judicial system, including the right for the public to witness jury selection and preliminary hearings. Justice in Plain Sight is a unique story that, for the first time, details two improbable journeys to the Supreme Court in which the stakes were as high as they could possibly be (and still are): the public's trust in its own government. Cover......Page 1 Title Page......Page 8 Copyright Page......Page 9 Contents......Page 12 List of Illustrations......Page 14 Prologue......Page 18 1. “They Can’t Do That, Can They?”......Page 22 2. “You’ll Never See Your Daughter Again”......Page 29 3. Slamming the Door......Page 34 4. The “Thrill-Killer” Nurse......Page 42 5. The Hays-Cherniss Newspaper......Page 49 6. “They Won’t Laugh at You Now”......Page 60 7. “Mr. Everything”......Page 66 8. The Battleground......Page 72 9. Building the Case......Page 91 10. The Diaz Case Advances......Page 108 11. Mr. Ward Goes to Washington......Page 113 12. The Audience of Nine......Page 118 13. “I Will Be Back”......Page 126 14. “The Presumption of Openness”......Page 139 15. A Halt to the “Ominous Progression”?......Page 150 16. Smacked Down Again......Page 160 17. “Expanding the Right of Access”......Page 167 18. Needle in a Haystack......Page 173 19. “The Soil of Openness”......Page 188 20. “Hands over His Face”......Page 196 21. “Safeguard against the Corrupt and Eccentric”......Page 208 Epilogue......Page 215 Acknowledgments......Page 226 Notes......Page 232 Bibliography......Page 262 Index......Page 266