News organizations ask access to juvenile's trial

By Staff Correspondent

Austin, Minn.
Lawyer for news organizations asked Tuesday that the juvenile court trial of a Lyle, Minn., boy accused of killing his former teacher be open to the press.

They said news coverage would help the public understand how juvenile proceedings work and counter rumors and speculation with accurate reporting. They also said the youth's privacy would be protected because news organizations don't name defendants in juvenile court.

Judges in Minnesota are permitted to open delinquency hearings to the press when they deem it in the public interest.

"The public's right to know is important, but it is not a right to be vindicated at the cost of sensationalism and prejudice to the child's rights," the boy's attorney, Bruce Hanley of Minneapolis, said in a written brief.

In the hearing, before Judge Harold Krieger of Rochester, Hanley said that media coverage would taint the boy's chances of "blending back into the mainstream of society, and hurt his family." Hanley suggested that the judge could release daily summaries to the press.

"That system would provide no checks and balances that the presence of a reporter would provide," said Paul Hannah, an attorney for WCCO-TV and the St. Paul Dispatch and Pioneer Press.

"A lot of people out there will be wondering what you are doing... and wondering if you're doing the right thing," said Patricia Hirl, a Minneapolis Star and Tribune lawyer. She added that the Star and Tribune "has known since the very beginning of this case the identity of the child and has not published his name."

The youth is charged with shooting Sharon Turnbull, 33, through a screen door with a .22 caliber rifle as she watched television in her home on Aug. 6. The juvenile court proceeding is to begin in mid-December.