Riley, J.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant-Intervenor, WPTA-TV, appeals the trial court’s grant of its request for a digitally recorded version of a publicly available court record while limiting WPTA-TV’s use of the audio record and barring its broadcast or dissemination.
We affirm.
ISSUES
WPTA-TV presents us with three issues on appeal, which we consolidate and restate as the following two issues:
(1) Whether the trial court abused its discretion when it applied Indiana Judicial Rule 2.17 to limit the use of an audio recording of a sentencing hearing by a news media organization; and
(2) Whether the trial court’s prohibition to broadcast the audio recording of a judicial proceeding violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
….
Under Indiana Administrate Rule 9(D), the requested audio recording of the sentencing hearing was a public court record which should be made available— and was—to WPTA-TV. In accordance with Administrative Rule 9(D)(4), the trial court managed the access to its audio recording in compliance with Indiana Judicial Rule 2.17. Implicitly concluding that WPTA-TV’s request fell outside the three exceptions listed in the Rule, the trial court granted a copy of the recording to WPTA-TV, but prohibited its broadcast as mandated by the Rule’s preamble. [Footnote omitted.]
WPTA-TV now attempts to circumvent the application of Judicial Rule 2.17 by contending that the Rule is only applicable to the contemporaneous recording of the proceedings and not to the ex post facto broadcasts of a hearing. We find WPTA-TV’s interpretation of Judicial Rule 2.17 too narrow. Witnesses and other actors in the current courtroom hearings proceed with the understanding that although their words are recorded, these recordings are used solely within the judicial realm, thereby protecting the effectiveness, reliability, and fairness of the judicial system. Permitting the audio of a proceeding to be broadcast to the public in general by way of any type of media, would have an intimidating impact, not only on the behavior of the witnesses and other actors—causing possible fear and reluctance to testify—but also on the openness and candidness of any trial testimony. We perceive no difference between the effect of broadcasting a hearing ex post facto versus the contemporaneous dissemination of the proceeding. As we believe that “the atmosphere essential to the preservation of a fair trial—the most fundamental of all freedoms—must be maintained at all costs,” we affirm the trial court’s decision, prohibiting the “[b]roadcasting [of] all or parts of a court record.” Estes v. Texas, 381 U.S. 532, 540, 85 S.Ct. 1628, 14 L.Ed.2d 543 (1965); (Appellant’s App. Vol. II, p. 8)
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Despite WPTA-TV’s attempt to define the trial court’s Order as a gag order, we are not persuaded. The trial court’s Order does not prohibit WPTA-TV from reporting on Mathew’s sentencing hearing and using the transcript of the hearing in its publication or broadcast; rather the trial court only prohibited the dissemination of the audio recording of the hearing to the public at large while leaving all other forms of communication available. Accordingly, the issue here is not a complete ban on a publication by the press; rather WPTA-TV’s constitutional claim turns on the breadth of the First Amendment’s “implicit guarantee against undue interference with the acquisition of knowledge.”…
…Here, we find Judicial Rule 2.17 to be content neutral as it applies to all audio recordings of hearings and proceedings regardless of their content or the message conveyed.
…Judicial Rule 2.17 is aimed at the protection and preservation of a fair trial by reducing the intimidating impact the broadcast of an audio recording would produce on witnesses and other judicial actors. It is narrowly-tailored to only apply to courtroom recordings, while it does not restrict the exhibition of recordings where these governmental interests are not implicated, such as ceremonial functions. By limiting the scope of Judicial Rule 2.17 to merely those instances where the governmental interest is strongest, the state judiciary has narrowly tailored the Rule to advance its legitimate interest without overly burdening free expression while, at the same time, providing ample alternative channels of communication of the information contained in the recordings by making the transcripts of the hearing available. Accordingly, WPTA-TV fails on its claim that Judicial Rule 2.17 runs afoul of the First Amendment.
CONCLUSION
Based on the foregoing, we hold that the trial court properly applied Indiana Judicial Rule 2.17 to limit the use by a news media organization of an audio recording of a sentencing hearing; and this prohibition does not violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Affirmed.
Robb, J. and Pyle, J. concur.