Phil reports on the start of the Kissel murder trial and the request by the defense to hold the trial in camera. As Phil and Doug discuss, it seems hard to justify closing off the court due to media interest. At worst the jury can be sequestered or told to avoid reports on the trial and under common law rules you cannot publish notes or details of trials until they are finished.

I was trying to organise coverage of the trial but I was unsuccessful. It appears there will be some mainstream media coverage, although again as Phil points out it seems blogs have been far more prominent in providing information on the case. Vive le revolution.

Below the fold I've included the SCMP's article on the trial from today, which can also be found as the AP wire article the Phil found.

A murder trial began on Wednesday for an American woman accused of beating to death her husband, a senior executive at the Wall Street investment bank Merrill Lynch. Nancy Ann Kissel, 40, a Minnesota native who has pleaded innocent, looked calm as she appeared in Hong Kong’s High Court on a charge of murdering Robert Kissel, the Asia-Pacific managing director of debt markets at Merrill Lynch’s Hong Kong office.

Defence lawyer Gary Plowman sought permission from the judge to continue the hearing behind closed doors. He argued that both the local and international press had shown “considerable interest” in the case and the media reports might involve details that could jeopardize a fair jury trial for the defendant.

High Court Judge Michael Victor Lunn did not immediately rule on the request.

Kissel, born in Minneapolis, was arrested in November 2003 shortly after police found her husband’s body wrapped in plastic sheets and a carpet in an underground storeroom the couple had rented near their luxury apartment.

The victim, a native of New York, had died of head injuries. He had formerly worked for investment bank Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong.

I've established a category of the Kissel case with all the relevant posts on the topic.