Miami-Dade County Judge William Altfield today denied the request of media to view the 10-hour video footage of police surveillance in relation to pop star Justin Bieber's arrest for driving under the influence. Reuters said that part of the footage shows a semi-naked Bieber while he was in police custody, and at one point giving his urin sample behind a low wall for his sobriety test.
Addressing the attorneys who represented several media giants who were looking to secure access to the footage under the broad public records law of Florida, Altfield said, "Do you believe that the public has the right to ... see Justin Bieber urinating?"
Attorney Scott Ponce for the Miami Herald and CBS had said, "I don't think the public has a right to see his penis. (However,) I believe the public has a right to see him standing behind a wall doing what we know is urinating." Ponce also said that should Bieber's private parts where shown in the footage, the prosecutors could opt to black them out.
Attorneys of the pop star filed a motion to stop the images of Bieber's arrest and detention from being released to the public after a video clip of him being patted down by an officer of the Miami Beach police was released early this month, Reuters said.
Part of the motion filed in early February with the Miami-Dade County Court, it read, "While in custody at the Miami Beach police station, the defendant was captured on videotape in various states of undress which show intimate personal parts of the defendant's body." The motion stated that the constitution and state law in Florida has protected the images in question from being disclosed to the public.
Howard Srebnick, a lawyer from Bieber's camp, said about the hearing regarding the singer's DUI arrest footage, "I find the argument to be insulting and demeaning of the court ... to just fuzz out the private parts."
The 19 year-old was charged with DUI, resisting arrest and driving with an expired license after Miami Beach police said on January 23 that they caught Bieber drag racing. At his hearing on Thursday, Bieber has pleaded not guilty in all of the charges filed against him, Reuters said.
