It took less than a day to illustrate the damage to First Amendment rights caused by Douglas County Judge Paula Martin’s decision to prohibit the publication of courtroom sketches of a teenage witness.

On Thursday, one day after her initial ruling, Martin prohibited The World Company, owner of the Journal-World and Sunflower Broadband, from publishing or broadcasting sketches of two adult witnesses, including the former mistress of Martin K. Miller, the Lawrence man being tried for first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Mary Miller.

The judge never explained her reasoning for expanding her ruling to include adult witnesses; she just had her secretary call our attorney. The decision sets a dangerous precedent that infringes on the entire media’s ability to do its job. That cannot go unchallenged.

The editors of the Lawrence Journal-World and 6News make hundreds of decisions every day about what news to publish or broadcast. The First Amendment gives the nation’s news media the right, really the duty, to perform its work without prior restraint.

The judge said Wednesday that her concern was for the privacy of Miller’s children, Melodie Miller, 14, and Matthew Miller, 12. Her concern as a mother is not misplaced. But as a judge, her concern should be for the law. The privacy concerns that may have guided her decision to shield the Miller children wouldn’t seem to apply to adult witnesses who were shielded the next day.

World Company attorney Gerald L. Cooley argued for the right to create any images from the trial. Whether or not the sketches of the children would be published or aired was not the issue.

Cooley was attempting to prevent the court from employing prior restraint against the media, in short, to allow editors to do their job and make decisions about what to present to their audience.

For decades, newspapers and television stations have provided readers with drawings detailing courtroom events. The Michael Jackson child molestation trial is the most recent example. That case involved several youths testifying, or those who were juveniles at the time of the allegations. There were no cameras in the courtroom, but courtroom sketch artists were not restricted from determining whom to draw. Images of minors didn’t include their faces, so they could not be recognized.

Journal-World staff writer Eric Weslander asked Judge Martin for permission prior to the trial to have a sketch artist create images from the Miller trial. She did not object nor place any restrictions on the artist. During Wednesday’s hearing, the judge even remarked that she was heartened to learn that courtroom sketching is not a dying art.

Unfortunately, her appreciation for the craft stopped short of upholding the rights of the First Amendment.