Media groups back objection to judges shuttering of court

Hawaii news organizations are supporting the Star-Advertiser’s request to the state Supreme Court for an order prohibiting the judge handling federal agent Christopher Deedy’s murder case from holding private court sessions without giving the public a chance to object.

In their request filed last month, the Star-Advertiser and Hawaii News Now also asked the high court to release transcripts of court proceedings Circuit Judge Karen Ahn held privately before she declared a mistrial in the Deedy case in August.

The special agent will be retried for murder in the 2011 shooting of Kollin Elderts at a McDonald’s Waikiki restaurant, and Ahn has scheduled the start of jury selection in June.

Before she declared the mistrial Aug. 26, Ahn held a private bench conference for about 20 minutes even though the jury was not present and then cleared the courtroom to hold a closed session.

The transcript of the bench conference and the closed court session remains sealed.

THE two media organizations said Ahn’s actions violated the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment rights of the public and the press.

Civil Beat, the online news website, and other television stations and newspapers filed a friend-of-the-court brief Monday in support of the request.

The brief filed Monday was also in behalf of television stations KHON and KITV; Hawaii Public Radio; the Hawaii Tribune-Herald and West Hawaii Today; the Maui Time Weekly; Hawaii Reporter; Society of Professional Journalists’ Hawaii chapter; Media Council Hawaii, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Their brief said Ahn disregarded well-established U.S. Supreme Court precedent and "failed to follow basic procedures that assure continued public confidence in the integrity of the state’s administration of justice."

It urges the state high court to recognize that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment has imposed standards on closing the courtroom.

"Open trials assure the public that procedural rights are respected, and that justice is afforded equally," the brief said, quoting a 1980 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

The high court has ordered Ahn, city prosecutors and Deedy to respond to the request by the Star-Advertiser and Hawaii News Now this week.