Slapped Down

When newsmen were barred from the Manhattan vice trial of Minot F. ("Mickey") Jelke (TIME, Feb. 16 et seq.), five dailies and two press services appealed the ruling of Trial Judge Francis L. Valente. Last week the New York supreme court's appellate division, in a 3-to-2 decision, slapped down the publishers on the ground that "freedom of the press is not involved." Said the majority: there is no "right of every citizen to be a spectator" at a trial. Public trials are only to protect "the civil rights of the individual" (defendant), and third parties "not directly affected" cannot intervene to protect such rights. Said the two dissenting judges: the exclusion violated the public's right to public trials. "Cases involving prostitution . . . have been with us for years . . . No showing has been made [distinguishing this] case in any moral way from the run of prostitution cases . . ."

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