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COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA Present: IN RE: Judges Benton, Coleman and Willis OPINION PER CURIAM AUGUST 12, 1997

TIMES-WORLD CORPORATION

Record No. 1145-97-3

UPON A PETITION FOR A WRIT OF MANDAMUS (D. Stan Barnhill; Philip W. Parker; Woods, Rogers & Hazlegrove, on brief), for petitioner. (Richard Cullen, Attorney General; Gregory E. Lucyk, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Peter R. Messitt, Senior Assistant Attorney General, on brief), for respondent. (Terry N. Grimes; Malcolm McL. Doubles; King, Fulghum, Snead, Nixon & Grimes, on brief), for Earl Conrad Bramblett.

Times-World Corporation ("Times-World") seeks access to the videotape of testimony and documents admitted into evidence in the competency hearing conducted on May 6, 1997, in the matter of Commonwealth v. Earl Conrad Bramblett, a criminal proceeding currently pending in the Roanoke County Circuit Court. The trial

court ordered the competency hearing closed to the public, including the media. Times-World, publisher of The Roanoke

Times, contends that the trial court's order abridges the freedom of the press in violation of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article I,

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