Media Barred as Trial Opens in Actor’s Death

In a highly unusual action Monday, the judge in the trial of three men suspected of killing Oscar-winning actor Haing Ngor banned reporters from the courtroom after they refused to comply with his order not to report on the opening statement.

Superior Court Judge J.D. Smith said that he asked reporters to withhold information because each of the three defendants has a separate jury. Testimony will be presented to the three juries simultaneously except during opening statements and closing arguments, when only the jury for each defendant will be present.

A number of legal scholars contended that Smith’s action was unwarranted.

“It’s blatantly unconstitutional,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a professor at the USC School of Law. “If there was a need to protect juries from hearing parts of a trial, then the appropriate action is to direct juries not to read the newspaper, or to sequester them. You don’t protect juries by closing the courtroom to the press.”

Smith could not be reached for comment. But Deputy Dist. Atty. Craig Hum, who is prosecuting the defendants, said: “From the judge’s perspective, he didn’t want anything reported that all three juries didn’t hear. I didn’t have a problem either way but the defense wanted it that way and the judge agreed.”

Ngor, 55, won an Oscar for his role in “The Killing Fields.” He survived the horrors of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, but was shot to death in Los Angeles in 1996 during a robbery near his apartment.

The judge asked reporters to withhold information during the first two opening statements because he is seeking to shield jurors from some key testimony. Some of the defendants, for example, have made statements to police that implicate their co-defendants. Smith has also forbidden members of each jury to talk to members of the other two juries.

Reporters told the judge they could not agree to withhold information.

“In that case, all press is out of the courtroom,” the judge said.

About half a dozen reporters walked out. Opening statements then began, with spectators allowed to remain.

Reporters were allowed to return to the courtroom later in the day.

Kelli Sager, an attorney representing several news organizations that missed the opening statements, appeared in court after the judge’s order and sought a hearing on the issue. But Smith refused to hear arguments and he also refused to put his order in writing.

Sager said she plans to appeal the judge’s decision. She hopes to obtain a copy of the trial transcripts so the reporters can read the opening statements.

Shortly before court Monday morning, she said, a defense attorney raised the issue of reporters in the courtroom.

“The judge’s action is highly unusual, particularly when, as in this case, there is no prior notice or opportunity for the press to present any argument,” she said. “If the defendants had any concerns about what might be published in the newspaper, they had many months to raise that before the judge. Yet the first we heard about it was when the judge ordered all reporters to leave the courtroom.

“Appellate courts almost inevitably overturn these orders. It’s a very rare circumstance when the closure of a trial is justified.”

Doug Mirell, an attorney who represents the ACLU on 1st Amendment issues, said a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1980--Richmond Newspapers vs. Virginia--established that “there is a 1st Amendment for the press and the public to attend criminal trials.” This decision, he said, was upheld several times in subsequent decisions.

Before becoming a judge, Smith was with the Los Angeles Police Department for 24 years. He had been a detective and served as a court liaison officer. He was also a partner in a Los Angeles law firm. Smith was a Glendale Municipal Court judge when, in 1987, he was elevated to the Superior Court by Gov. George Deukmejian.

After Ngor’s slaying, there was speculation that the actor was killed for political reasons because of his activism for Cambodian causes and his poignant portrayal of a victim of the Khmer Rouge. But police later arrested three young men, all suspected gang members, and said Ngor was killed during a street robbery.

Attorneys for the defendants say that police arrested the wrong people.

Tak Sun Tan, 21, Indra Lim, 20, and Jason Chan, 20, were ordered to stand trial together, but the case became complicated when they gave separate statements to police. Their lawyers asked for three trials. The judge, trying to streamline the process, ordered three juries instead.

Smith indicated that he would place additional restraints on the press when there is testimony about the defendants’ statements to police.

Meanwhile, in the Santa Monica trial of a man accused of stalking director Steven Spielberg, a judge late last Friday took the extraordinary step of ordering journalists not to report on an exchange that occurred in open court and on the record but outside the jury’s presence.

The gag order, issued by Superior Court Judge Steven C. Suzukawa, was scheduled for a hearing Monday. But the proceeding was delayed by the judge until today, when attorneys representing Copley Newspapers, Associated Press and CNN will ask the judge to lift the order.

Times staff writer Greg Krikorian and Associated Press contributed to this story.