DAYTON — The media and public will be allowed at all pretrial hearings for Brian and Rivae Hart, a Dayton couple accused of keeping a young girl locked in a bathroom for six years.

Adelina Hamilton, an assistant county public defender representing Brian Hart, and Casey Daganhardt, who represents Rivae Hart, filed a motion to close pretrial hearings, citing what they called excessive pretrial publicity. The media coverage would prevent the Harts from getting a fair trial, the attorneys stated in memorandums filed and during a hearing April 5.

The original motion was to close the courtroom to reporters, but at the hearing, the defense attorneys broadened the motion to include the public.

Attorneys representing the Dayton Daily News, WHIO-TV and WHIO Radio filed motions so that the proceedings would be open to the public, allowing the media to continue covering the latest developments in this case. WDTN-TV also filed a motion.

The Dayton Daily News and our partners at WHIO-TV first broke this story in February. We fought to keep the case open so that we could continue to report on possible gaps in our community’s child welfare system that could arise in court.

Judge Dennis J. Langer, in a ruling filed Wednesday, wrote that “closure of all pretrial hearings is not required, and would constitute an unjustifiable infringement upon the First Amendment right of the public and the media.”

Langer cited the case of Therressa Jolynn Ritchie, a Dayton woman convicted of killing her 4-year-old daughter, which saw “massive pretrial publicity” in the mid-1990s. The Ohio 2nd District Court of Appeals ruled that the methods of jury selection used by Judge John Kessler ensured that Ritchie received a fair trial.

Langer did order the county clerk of courts to restrict online access to documents in the case to the involved parties. However, media representatives and the public can see those documents at the clerk’s office.

The Harts have been indicted on kidnapping and endangering children charges, all felonies. Arrested Jan. 27, they remain in the county jail.

The girl is the biological granddaughter of Rivae Hart. Starting from when she was 3, the girl was confined in a bathroom when not in school, police have said.

The girl, her biological brother, and the Harts’ two children were all removed from the family’s home at 4825 Hassan Circle, Apt. 6. According to police, a judge in Virginia granted the Harts custody of the girl and her brother around 2004.