Reply #15: It does make sense, because the constitutional question was on free speech.

[Nailzberg]

It's not about the privacy of the victim. The victims of sexual assaults already had privacy rights in place. A court could still hold the open trial and the victim's name would be sealed.

This bill went further and allowed the entire trial to be sealed after the open court trial. There are several problems that arise from that. First off, if I was a reporter n a courtroom covering a sex crime trial, can I report on it knowing that it could very well be sealed after the trial has ended? And if I did report on it, what are the newspaper's protections? Could the newspaper be sued for invasion of privacy, even though the trial was in open court? Could they be punished for violating a court seal even though there was an open trial? The bill failed to address the issue of how the court seals affected the press protections, and so three Democrats on the Judiciary committee voted present and asked the full Senate to address this. They failed to do so, and the bill went straight to roll call.

A no vote would have meant he disagreed with the bill. The present vote indicated he agreed with the spirit of the bill, but used a present vote to express his concern for the Senate's failure to address the free speech issues.