Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2022
Abstract
This Article identifies and explores a transparency guarantee that permeates the Constitution's criminal procedure provisions. This guarantee protects multiple dimensions of transparency - which I categorize as participatory, informational, and corporal--through overlapping structural safeguards and individual rights, and through protections afforded to both the public and the accused. Despite the strength and pervasiveness of the overarching transparency guarantee, the discrete provisions from which it is derived are often peripheral in today's criminal justice system, which is dominated by plea bargaining and incarceration rather than trials and public-square punishment. And, because the constitutional transparency protections are viewed in clause-bound isolation, modern transparency deficits are generally viewed as policy problems, not constitutional ones. I urge that renewed attention to the overarching constitutional transparency guarantee can support doctrinal and legislative efforts to strengthen criminal justice transparency in modern times.
Recommended Citation
Aliza Plener Cover, The Constitutional Guarantee of Criminal Justice Transparency, 74 ALA. L. REV. 171 (2022).