Lawyer Defends Protest Access, Courtroom Closure

Posted by Terry Francke, General Counsel | Dec 6, 2011 | Awareness Area: Justice, Awareness Area: Liberties, Legal Issue: Freedom of Assembly, Legal Issue: Freedom of Speech, Legal Issue: Open Courts | 0 |

Sacramento’s got (legal) talent. Attorney Linda Parisi argued to extend and to limit First Amendment rights in criminal cases one floor apart in the courthouse last Friday, reports Andy Furillo for the Sacramento Bee. In one case she joined other lawyers in defending Occupy protesters arrested for breaking curfew near city hall in downtown’s Chavez Plaza; in the other she argued to exclude the press and public from pretrial hearings in the belated prosecution of a notorious 30-year-old murder. The latter argument didn’t persuade the judge; the former is still before the other judge.

About The Editor

Terry Francke, General Counsel

Terry Francke has a 39-year history of helping journalists, citizens and public officials understand and use their First Amendment and open government rights. With CalAware, Francke has authored comprehensive and authoritative guidebooks to California law on access to government meetings and public records and the news gathering and publication rights of journalists. Focusing on these issues in public forum law, he supervises CalAware's legislative and litigation initiatives; conducts workshops on legal compliance; helps design public records audits; supports local sunshine ordinance drafting efforts; writes CalAware Today, a blog on current developments and proposals in the law and best practices; and answers countless queries by phone and e-mail from citizens, journalists, public officials and employees, and lawyers. Francke previously served 14 years as executive director and general counsel to the California First Amendment Coalition, after a 10-year post as legal counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association. He has served as an advisory panel member to the National Center on Courts and the Media; taught journalism law at the Department of Communication at Stanford University; and served as an expert contributor to the 1994 major revisions to the Ralph M. Brown Act and the 2004 ballot proposition making open government a basic right of citizens under the California Constitution. Francke is a 1967 graduate of the University of Notre Dame and a 1979 graduate of McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific. Prior to his legal career, Francke worked as a weekly newspaper editor and in military and local government public affairs positions.

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