Open Courts Victory

One of the important open-government protections is access to court proceedings. Open courts laws are often overshadowed by the Public Records Act and Open Public Meetings Act but are still important. People need to know how their courts are functioning to make sure bad things aren't happening when no one is looking.

Defense attorneys in a murder trial wanted to prevent the media from photographing the defendant and demanded a bunch of other restrictions on reporting. They lost, as described in this Seattle Times story.