The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit on Friday affirmed a district court’s decision earlier this year that Caldwell County’s closed bail hearing policy is unconstitutional.
Caldwell County’s policy to bar the press and public from bail hearings was challenged in a lawsuit in 2023 by two nonprofit news organizations, the Texas Tribune and the Caldwell/Hays Examiner, and advocacy organization Mano Amiga. The plaintiffs claimed the county violated their “First Amendment right of access to judicial proceedings and Plaintiffs’ Fourteenth Amendment right to procedural due process.”
