"Many salutary policies and principles profit from open courts, as the courts themselves confess and concede: first, public confidence in the justice system benefits from openness nor secrecy, public trials not Star Chambers; second, public oversight that can expose misconduct or malfeasance in the justice system; and third, “community therapy” or the communal value of public truth-finding and accountability. A government of the people, by the people and for the people cannot tolerate secret, closed courts hiding truth, obscuring evidence, and imprisoning those who report on it."

-- Constitutional Attorney Robert Barnes