Heads up! As the Court described in a public notice last week, the Hunter Biden criminal trial starts on Monday 6/3.
Just reading the notice, you can tell that the Court (unsurprisingly) expects quite a lot of people to be there. It is setting up the 3rd floor jury assembly room as an overflow room, and is not permitting reporters in the courtroom during jury selection:
Members of the public and media may not be present in the courtroom for jury selection but may listen to those proceedings from the overflow room (3rd Floor Jury Assembly Room).
Courtroom seating for . . . the portions of the trial other than jury selection will be on a first come, first served basis. To ensure fair access to the courtroom, only two members from each news outlet will be permitted to sit in the courtroom. To the extent the courtroom does not fill to capacity, additional members of news organizations will be allowed entry until the courtroom is full. Those not able to attend the hearing in the courtroom may view the proceedings via video stream in the overflow room in the Court’s 3 rd Floor Jury Assembly Room.
It's usually a good idea to arrive especially early on Mondays anyway, as that tends to be the day when juries are empaneled (sometimes Friday as well) and there can be delays getting into the courthouse. If you have a hearing this Monday, however, I'd advice arriving extra early.
If you're looking for updates, the case is USA v. Biden, C.A. No. 23-61-MN (D. Del.).
Media Challenge to Viewing Restrictions
Interestingly, after the public notice above, it looks like the "Press Coalition" (a group of news companies) filed a motion to intervene to challenge the Court's procedures under the First Amendment:
As it currently stands, however, the press and public will be barred from the courtroom during one of the key phases of trial: jury selection. Because that exclusion from the courtroom would violate the public’s well-established right of access to judicial records and proceedings, the Press Coalition . . . respectfully moves to intervene in this action for the limited purpose of challenging that restriction under the First Amendment. The Court should rescind its directive and provide in-person access to jury selection on the same terms that the press and public will have access to the other phases of this important trial.
Id., D.I. 192-1 at 1. The Court has not yet had a chance to rule on this order (at least as of mid-day Friday), but it will be interesting to see what it does. The restriction is likely due to the fact that the Courtroom is typically full doing jury selection, and there just is no space for more people.
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