Public trial or open trial is a trial open to public, as opposed to the secret trial. The term should not be confused with show trial. In legal parlance, a trial is an event in which parties to a dispute present information (in the form of evidence) in a formal setting, usually a court, before a judge, jury, or other designated finder of fact, in order to achieve a resolution to their dispute. ... A secret trial is a trial that is not open to the public, nor reported in the news. ... The term show trial serves most commonly to label a type of public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the accused: the actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as an impressive example and...

United States

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution establishes the right of the accused to a public trial. Amendment VI (the Sixth Amendment) of the United States Constitution codifies rights related to criminal prosecutions in federal courts. ...

The right to a public trial is not absolute. Openness may be overridden by the motion of closure. Trials may be reasonably regulated to avoid publicity that could prejudice a jury or harm the well-being of participants. Closures are decided case-by-case by the judge basing on substantial or legitimate public interest. Examples include organized crime cases (overall security concerns), rape cases (decency concerns) and juvenile cases. "^[1] Wikibooks has more about this subject: Marketing Look up publicity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For with(out) prejudice in law, see Prejudice (law). ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Organized crime or criminal organizations are groups or operations run by criminals, most commonly for the purpose of generating a monetary profit. ... The word juvenile has several meanings: A juvenile is an individual organism that has not yet reached its adult form, maturity or size. ...

Trials may be closed at the behest of the government only if it shows "an overriding interest based on findings that closure is essential to preserve higher values and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest." The accused may also request a closure of the trial; in such a case, it must be demonstrated that "first, there is a substantial probability that the defendant's right to a fair trial will be prejudiced by publicity that closure would prevent, and second, reasonable alternatives to closure cannot adequately protect the defendant's fair trial rights.

Soviet Union

In Soviet Union the terms "open trial" (открытый процесс) and "public trial" (публичный процесс) differed. The term "open trial" implied the possibility for public to be present at the hearings. The term "public trial" implied the purposeful presentation of the process to wide public. Public trials were usually widely discussed in media and hearings were often arranged in larger auditoria. While the Soviet public trials are commonly associated with Stalin era show trials, such as Moscow Trials, nevertheless in Russian culture the term "public trial" did not acquire negative connotations, despite the apparent attributes of a show, primarily because the publicity of any information in pre-glasnost era was severely limited by the Soviet state. The term "show trial" corresponds to Russian "показной процесс", (pokaznoy process). An auditorium is the area within a theatre, concert hall or other performance space where the audience is located in order to hear and watch the performance. ... (help· info) (Russian, in full: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин (Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin), né: Иосиф Виссарионович Джугашвили (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili), Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვილი (Ioseb Jughashvili); (December 18 [O.S. December 6] 1878 – March 5, 1953) was the leader of the Soviet Union from mid-1920s to his death in 1953 and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist... The term show trial serves most commonly to label a type of public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the accused: the actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as an impressive example and... The Moscow Trials were a series of trials of political opponents of Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge. ... The Russian culture is rooted in the early East Slavic culture. ... Look up show in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... //   (Russian: IPA: ) is politics of maximal openness, transparency of activity of all official (governmental) institutes, and freedom of information. ...

References

• History of the right to public trial

1. ^ Overview of the Sixth Amendment rights