150
Per Curiam
ciently like a trial" to require public access is present here. Rule 23 hearings are held before a neutral magistrate; the accused is afforded the rights to counsel, to cross-examination, to present testimony, and, at least in some instances, to suppress illegally seized evidence; 4 the accused is bound over for trial only upon the magistrate's finding probable cause; in a substantial portion of criminal cases, the hearing provides the only occasion for public observation of the criminal justice system; 5 and no jury is present. Cf. 478 U. S., at 12-13.
Nor are these commonalities coincidental: As the majority
noted, the Rule's drafters relied on the California law at issue in Press-Enterprise as one source of Rule 23. App. to Pet. for Cert. 93, n. 26. At best, the distinctive features of Puerto Rico's preliminary hearing render it a subspecies of the provision this Court found to be infirm seven years ago. Beyond this, however, the privacy provision of Rule 23(c) is more clearly suspect. California law allowed magistrates to close hearings only upon a determination that there was a substantial likelihood of prejudice to the defendant, yet the Press-Enterprise Court found this standard insufficiently exacting to protect public access. 478 U. S., at 14-15. By contrast, Rule 23 provides no standard, allowing hearings to be closed upon the request of the defendant, without more.
The Puerto Rico Supreme Court's reliance on Puerto Rican tradition is also misplaced. As the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has correctly stated, the "experience" test of Globe Newspaper does not look to the particular practice of any one jurisdiction, but instead "to the experience in that type or kind of hearing throughout the United States . . . ." Rivera-Puig v. Garcia-Rosario, 983 F. 2d 311, 323 (1992) (emphasis in original). The established and widespread tradition of open preliminary hearings among the
4 The admissibility of illegally seized evidence apparently is an open question in Puerto Rico law. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 107.
5 See id., at 204-205 (Hernández Denton, J., dissenting).
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