Virus cut access to courts but opened door to virtual future

Just two reporters were allowed inside a Georgia courtroom to serve as the eyes and ears of the public when jury selection began for the men charged with murdering Ahmaud Arbery. Pandemic restrictions also kept reporters and the public out of the courtroom during the sex-trafficking trial of music star R. Kelly.

And in an Ohio courtroom, a federal judge relegated the press to an overflow room to listen to an audio feed for the trial of a Chinese national charged with trying to steal trade secrets from U.S. companies.

A year-and-a-half into the coronavirus pandemic, courts across the U.S. are still grappling with how to balance public health concerns with the constitutional rights of a defendant and the public to have an open trial. There’s no standard solution. Some courts are still functioning entirely virtually. Others are back in person. And many are allowing only limited public access.

“This is a fundamental constitutional right that the public has — to have open courts and to be able to see what’s happening in real time in a courtroom,” said David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, which has prodded California courts to improve public access during the pandemic.

COVID-19 space constraints have led judges across the U.S. to exclude or limit public and media attendance at trials. During Kelly’s trial, which concluded last month with his conviction, a federal judge in New York barred the press and public from the courtroom because jurors were sitting six feet apart in the gallery normally used by observers. Onlookers could watch a live video feed in an overflow courtroom, but it offered no view of the jury and only limited images of the defendant, witnesses and exhibits. At one point, prosecutors played a recording that jurors listened to with headphones, with no audio available for the press and public.

The judge rejected a request by media groups, including The Associated Press, to allow pool reporters in the courtroom for much of the trial, letting six reporters in only when the verdict was announced.

A similar scenario played out last week in Ohio, where a federal judge cited the pandemic while keeping the public out of the courtroom for the trial of Yanjun Xu, a Chinese official accused of trying of steal trade secrets from U.S. aviation and aerospace companies. There was no public access to jury selection. Audio of the trial was played for media in a conference room.

Overflow rooms are better than nothing but often leave observers unable to see the full context of what’s occurring, like the reaction of jurors as evidence is presented, said New York attorney Rachel Strom, who represented media in the R. Kelly case.

“We don’t know what we missed by not having someone actually in the courtroom,” Strom said.

After the AP and other media filed legal motions, a Georgia judge granted just two media pool seats in the courtroom right before the start of jury selection in the trial of three white men charged with chasing and killing Arbery. Graphic cellphone video of the 25-yearold Black man being shot sparked outrage nationally last year, and the trial is being closely watched as a referendum on how the legal system treats Black victims. The judge has since allowed a third reporter and a photographer into the courtroom.