## Facts

- New York’s Education Law § 6510 establishes a three-step professional discipline process: (1) an adversarial hearing before the Office of Professional Discipline (OPD), (2) a hearing panel report with findings and recommendations, and (3) review and final determination by the Board of Regents based on the reports and transcript.
- Johnson Newspaper Corporation, publisher of the *Watertown Daily Times*, sought to attend an OPD disciplinary hearing involving professional misconduct charges against a dentist.
- OPD denied access under a Board of Regents policy that professional disciplinary hearings are closed unless the accused professional requests an open hearing.
- The newspaper filed a CPLR article 78 proceeding seeking to enjoin enforcement of the closure policy and to obtain a declaration that such hearings are presumptively open to the public and press.
- The trial court dismissed the petition, and the Appellate Division affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether the federal or New York Constitution provides the press and public a right of access to OPD professional disciplinary hearings conducted under Education Law § 6510.
2. Whether New York common law or state public policy provides a right of access to those hearings absent a constitutional mandate.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals of New York affirmed dismissal of the article 78 petition.
- The court held there is no constitutional right of access under the First Amendment or N.Y. Const. art. I, § 8 to OPD professional disciplinary hearings.
- The court held there is no common-law or public-policy-based right of access that overrides the statutory and regulatory confidentiality framework governing such proceedings.
- The court treated the press’s access claim as coextensive with the public’s access claim and rejected any argument for broader press rights.

## Legal Principles

- A constitutional right of public access to adjudicative proceedings is not automatic; it depends on whether the proceeding has (1) a historical tradition of openness and (2) whether openness materially benefits the functioning of that process.
- The open-proceedings doctrine developed for criminal trials does not extend by default to professional disciplinary hearings lacking a comparable history of public access.
- Under New York law, the press generally has no greater constitutional right of access to proceedings than the general public.
- Where the Legislature has created a detailed confidentiality regime for professional discipline, courts will not recognize a common-law access right that would negate the statutory design; policy choices about openness versus confidentiality are for the Legislature and authorized regulators.

## Conclusion

The court upheld closure of an OPD professional disciplinary hearing, concluding that neither the federal nor state constitution required public access and that New York common law did not supply an independent right to attend proceedings governed by a legislative confidentiality scheme.


Johnson Newspaper Corp. v. Melino, 564 N.E.2d 1046 (N.Y. 1990)