# Estes v. Texas

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 7, 1965 · 381 U.S. 532

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9423076

## Case

- **Full name:** Estes v. Texas
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 7, 1965
- **Citations:** 381 U.S. 532; 1 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 1187; 6 Rad. Reg. 2d (P & F) 2104; 85 S. Ct. 1628; 14 L. Ed. 2d 543; 1965 U.S. LEXIS 2339
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Brennan
- **Judges:** Clark, Warren, Harlan, Stewart, Douglas, Goldberg, Black, Brennan, White
- **Cited by:** 1,423 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9423076

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- recognizing that “[t]he free press has been a mighty catalyst in awakening public interest in governmental affairs, exposing corruption among public officers and employees and generally informing the citizenry of public events and occurrences, including court proceedings”
- holding that trial publicity, failure of trial judge to control proceedings, and televising of hearing "inherently prevented a sober search for the truth"
- holding that a plea-bargain proceeding in which no issues are contested is still a trial
- holding that a defendant had been denied due process because a pre-trial hearing had been televised live and then rebroadcast, and because the court proceedings had been disrupted by the presence of the media
- stating the converse proposition, that “[ojbviously, the public trial guarantee is not violated if an individual member of the public cannot gain admittance to a courtroom because there are no available seats”

## Opinion text

*631 Mr. Justice Brennan.
I write merely to emphasize that only four of the five Justices voting to reverse rest on the proposition that televised criminal trials are constitutionally infirm, whatever the circumstances. Although the opinion announced by my Brother Clark purports to be an “opinion of the Court,” my Brother Harlan subscribes to a significantly less sweeping proposition. He states:
“The Estes trial was a heavily publicized and highly sensational affair. I therefore put aside all other types of cases .... The resolution of those further questions should await an appropriate case; the Court should proceed only step by step in this un-plowed field. The opinion of the Court necessarily goes no farther, for only the four members of the majority who unreservedly join the Court’s opinion would resolve those questions now.” Ante, pp. 590-591. (Emphasis supplied.)
Thus today’s decision is not a blanket constitutional prohibition against the televising of state criminal trials.
While I join the dissents of my Brothers Stewart and White, I do so on the understanding that their use of the expressions “the Court’s opinion” or “the opinion of the Court” refers only to those views of our four Brethren which my Brother Harlan explicitly states he shares.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9423076. Public record. Not legal advice.