Johnson v. Simpson’s Empirical Analysis
1968
Citation profile
11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2004
11 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Sheppard v. Maxwell · In re Oliver · Maryland v. Baltimore Radio Show, Inc. · Phoenix Newspapers, Inc. v. Superior Court · State v. Marsh
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The principle that justice can not survive behind walls of silence is so deeply imbedded in our Anglo-American judicial system as to give our people in today’s modern society a deep distrust of secret trials. One of the strongest demands of a democratic system is that the public should know what goes on in their courts. This demand can only be met by permitting them to be present in person and by permitting the press who have the facilities to properly inform them to be present upon their behalf. It is insisted by some the right to public trial is solely for the benefit of the criminal defendant and if he has no objection to a closed trial then the public should not be permitted to object. This contention overlooks the fact that the public is a party to all criminal proceedings. The proceeding is prosecuted in the name of the public. In our opinion there is nothing that better protects the rights of the public than their presence in proceedings where these rights are on trial. The news media should be accorded some priority in this respect for they have the facilities to disseminate the information of what transpires to a much broader audience than those who can gather in a crowded court room.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““It cannot be doubted that a trial judge has authority to exclude the young from his court room during a trial where unsavory and vulgar evidence will be produced. Also, he may protect a child witness, who from the nature of the case must testify to revolting facts, by excluding morbid, prurient, curious and sensation-seeking persons from the court room, so long as he does not abuse his discretion and deprive the accused of the right to have his family and friends present as well as a reasonable portion of the public. Such limited exclusion of people from the court room when resorted to in the exercise of a reasonable and sound discretion does not violate Sec. 11 of the Constitution granting the accused a public trial.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.