The Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and a national journalists’ rights group are backing a convicted drug defendant who has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Georgia high court decision upholding the closure of jury selection to the public.
Saying that courts across the nation have “chipped away” at the public’s right to observe the selection of jurors in criminal trials, despite a string of U.S. Supreme Court rulings largely affirming that right, Georgia’s defense lawyers have filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the high court to hear the appeal of Eric Presley, who was convicted in DeKalb County Superior Court in 2006.
