Reporters Attending Depositions
The ongoing Caylee Anthony circus has underscored a valuable question for litigators: Can journalists attend depositions? It appears that the lawyer for the woman accused by the toddler’s mother (who is currently residing in jail) wants the grandparents deposed before reporters. The Anthony’s lawyer calls the plan “ludicrous” and plans to ask the judge to delay the depositions, if not bar the reporters from the deposition.
“Ludicrous” may be too strong an adjective, but certainly the plan is problematic. Although the public traditionally has a right to attend judicial proceedings, pretrial depositions and interrogatories are not public components of a civil trial, and as a result, pretrial discovery proceedings are generally conducted in private as a matter of modern practice. This does not mean that the public does not have the right to inspect the fruits of deposition discovery - the transcript or videotape - at an appropriate time and in an appropriate manner, but simply that the public has no right to observe the deposition process “in real time” as it is unfolding.
Not only is there no general public right to observe a civil deposition while it is occurring, the presiding court has the authority to restrict the right of a party to observe or participate in a deposition in its own case. In exercising their discretion to determine whether reporters may attend a deposition, the courts would generally engage in a fact-specific inquiry to determine if their attendance is appropriate and justified.
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Maryland Discovery Problems and Solutions
