[JURIST] The Minnesota Supreme Court [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] on Wednesday that requiring a person to show photographic identification before entering a courtroom does not constitute a “partial courtroom closure” and “was too trivial to constitute a true closure.” The defendant, who was convicted for the shooting of three teenagers, argued that preventing members of the public from entering the courtroom violated his Sixth Amendment [text] right to a public trial. While the court found that there were no constitutional grounds for reversal in this case, the opinion advised against requiring identification to enter a courtroom and concluded the discussion by stating, “[w]e do not want anyone to be discouraged from attending or viewing proceedings in Minnesota courts.”

Requiring citizens show photo identification before exercising a given right has been a contentious issue in the US recently. Earlier in August a panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that a Texas voter identification law discriminated against blacks and Hispanics. In May the New Hampshire Supreme Court struck down [JURIST report] a 2012 law requiring voters to be state residents, not just domiciled in the state. In March the US Supreme Court denied certiorari [JURIST report] in Frank v. Walker, allowing Wisconsin’s voter identification law to stand. Wisconsin’s Act 23, which requires residents to present photo ID to vote, was struck down by a federal district court, but reinstated [JURIST reports] by the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in September. Also in March Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed a new law [JURIST report] that made Oregon the first state in the nation to institute automatic voter registration. In November a federal appeals court rejected [JURIST report] a Kansas rule that required prospective voters to show proof-of-citizenship documents before registering using a federal voter registration form.