Judge says he'll open Jena trial to public

HOUSTON - Replying to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of U.S. media companies, the judge overseeing the trial of Mychal Bell, one of the teenage defendants in the racially charged Jena 6 case in Louisiana, reversed course Thursday and agreed to open Bell's upcoming juvenile trial to the public.

But LaSalle Parish District Judge J.P. Mauffray, in a court filing, maintained that he is not required to open pre-trial hearings in Bell's case to the news media or the public, and he argued that the media lawsuit seeking full access to Bell's case should be dismissed.

The lawsuit, initiated by the Chicago Tribune and joined by the Associated Press, The New York Times Co., CNN and other major media organizations, asserts that Mauffray's earlier decision to close all the proceedings in Bell's case runs counter to Louisiana juvenile laws and provisions of both the Louisiana and U.S. Constitutions.

The suit cites, among other arguments, a 2004 Louisiana Supreme Court ruling that all juvenile proceedings involving certain categories of violent crime must be conducted in open court.

"Judge Mauffray does acknowledge that [sections of the Louisiana Children's Code] permit or require adjudication, disposition and modification hearings in those specified cases to be public, and he intends to comply with applicable law," Mauffray's attorney, Donald Wilson, wrote in response to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit is set to be heard Wednesday. Bell, 17, is scheduled to go on trial Dec. 6 on charges of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy for his alleged part in an attack on a white student at Jena High School last December.

Six black teenagers have been charged with jumping the white student and kicking him while he lay unconscious. The incident capped months of violent racial tensions in the small, mostly white central Louisiana town, and civil rights leaders have asserted that the charges against the black youths were excessive.

Bell was initially tried and convicted of the charges as an adult, but an appellate court threw out the conviction, ruling that Bell should have been prosecuted as a juvenile
Judge says he'll open Jena trial to public -- chicagotribune.com