Pro-Life News

Preliminary Hearings Not Closed Very Often

MODESTO -- Closing a preliminary hearing, as Scott Peterson's defense attorneys have asked, is rare but not unheard of in California, according to legal observers. Several scholars had to look back to 1982 before recalling a preliminary hearing that banned the public and press. That case, in which Riverside County nurse Robert Diaz was convicted of 12 counts of murder for giving patients lethal doses of a heart medication, has set the legal standard for closing a preliminary hearing. Posted by Editor at August 4, 2003 08:58 AM