From the Media

published in the Galveston County Daily News Sunday April 6, 2008

High-profile trials make for balancing act.

Galveston: Judge talks about protecting rights of accused, public
By SCOTT E. WILLIAMS

The Galveston County Courthouse is the site of hundreds of trials each year. Whether civil or criminal, each party in each case has rights, and protecting those is the duty of the judge presiding over each case.
When a case catches the attention of national media, judges inherit another bundle of concerns, as they must balance the rights of those in trial with the public’s right to know about court proceedings.
Judge Susan Criss, of the 212th State District Court, is no stranger to high-profile trials. Most recently, she has presided over the trial of Joshua Mauldin, convicted of injury to a child after he cooked his infant daughter in a microwave oven.
In the past year, Judge Criss has also presided over continual legal hearings over the March 2005 blasts at BP’s Texas City refinery, which killed 15, injured hundreds and launched thousands of lawsuits.
Both cases drew media attention from all over the world. However, Criss said she applied lessons to both trials that she had learned from a highly publicized murder case, about five years ago.
In 2003, she presided over the murder trial of Robert Durst. A jury ultimately acquitted Durst, a New York millionaire, in a case involving the death and dismemberment of his isle neighbor, Morris Black.
With national TV news agencies based in Durst’s hometown of New York, media coverage was heavy.
Criss said she tried to ensure the local, national and international press could report the trial, without allowing that coverage to interfere with the trial itself.
“The trial comes first, because everyone is entitled to a fair trial and to due process, but I try to find ways the press can do its job and let the public know what’s going on in court,” she said.
Judge Criss said that was easiest when a coverage plan was in place, before the trial even started. In Durst’s case, that meant allowing photographers time at the end of each day to get pictures of exhibits used in that day’s proceedings.
In Mauldin’s case, the plan included a pool camera to record lawyers and witnesses — but not jurors — for television, as well as establishing a media room for reporters and photographers to work in. That kept them out of the corridors, where they could have made for loud disruptions.
Keeping jurors from outside influence is something Criss takes seriously. During the Durst trial, the judge ejected a sketch artist from the trial, after finding the artist sketching the jurors. During Mauldin’s trial, Judge Criss repeatedly warned jurors they could face contempt of court if they discussed the case with anyone or violated her order not to watch, listen to or read any media account of the case.
“You have to enforce the rules fairly,” she said, adding that letting anyone get away with violating court rules, established to ensure everyone gets his or her fair day in court, sends a dangerous message.
Judge Criss also said that she had generally found media members to be fair, even when she had to rule against them.
“I know a lot of judges fear the media will distort things, but my experience is that if you explain a decision, they’re almost always very fair, even when there are things we can’t discuss, to protect things like attorney-client privilege,” she said. “Sometimes, I have to make a controversial decision, and either way it goes, I’ll get criticized, but the public does have a right to know what its elected officials are doing.”