State v. Williams

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

HANDLER, J.

These cases pose the question of whether and under what circumstances pretrial proceedings in a criminal prosecution can be closed to the public and the press. In each of these cases, the defendant has been charged with murder under the New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice and faces the death penalty. Defendants claim that the public and the press should be excluded from certain of their pretrial proceedings, specifically a probable cause hearing and bail applications. Defendants assert that the adverse publicity generated by the conduct of…