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Legal News

: Lawbeat

Chron scrutinizes Kent case gag order

By Mark Obbie

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The Houston Chronicle's federal courts reporter Mary Flood reports on a strict gag order imposed in the pending criminal case against federal judge Samuel Kent. Flood's straight-news approach is nonetheless transparently skeptical about how far the visiting judge in the case, Roger Vinson of Pensacola, will go to inhibit publicity -- and public information -- including his revelation in the gag order that he intends to hold some hearings in chambers. Flood writes:
This gag order is an unusual move for a federal judge. Though the Houston Chronicle and the Galveston County Daily News have covered the case for some months, the coverage of Kent has not been particularly vast, compared with other Houston stories. No gag orders were issued in the multiple Enron criminal trials where media coverage was far more extensive and federal judges here repeatedly sat juries from the 13 counties that feed the federal Houston jury pool.
Chron metro columnist Lisa Falkenberg chimed in with a bold, clear-eyed column making plain what's at stake:
Of all trials, one involving a public servant charged with violating the very laws he was appointed to a lifetime bench to uphold should be conducted in the light of day.
Light, after all, is what got this case to the courtroom in the first place.
She's referring to reporting by the paper's Lise Olsen, which brought the accuser's story into public view -- and took a case that had been dealt with internally, and leniently, to a new level. Bravo to the Chronicle's team for giving scrutiny to the way the Kent case continues to unfold.

Full post as published by Lawbeat on September 09, 2008 (boomark / email).

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