United States v. King

Affirmed. Judge Cabranes Dissents with a separate opinion. This interlocutory appeal concerns a limited closure of proceedings in a criminal trial, primarily a denial of press access to transcripts of in camera individual voir dire of prospective jurors until a jury has been impaneled. Intervenors -- the companies publishing The Daily News, The New York Post, The New York Times, and Newsday, and a Daily News and a Post reporter -- appeal from orders entered on December 27, 1995, and February 5, 1998, by the District Court for the Southern District of New York (Lawrence M. McKenna, Judge), in connection with jury selection in the impending trial of boxing promoter Don King and his corporation on wire fraud charges, scheduled to begin March 12, 1998. The orders also limit press access to transcripts of voir dire proceedings from King's 1995 trial on the same charges, which ended in a mistrial. We affirm.