Case Title: State v. LaFontaine

Citation: 293 N.W.2d 426

Docket Number: 708-B

State: north-dakota

Court: North Dakota Supreme Court

Date: 1980-04-30T00:00:00Z

Document:
293 N.W.2d 426 (1980) STATE of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Russell LaFONTAINE, Defendant and Appellant. Crim. No. 708-B. Supreme Court of North Dakota. April 30, 1980. *427 Cynthia A. Rothe, State's Atty., Fargo, for plaintiff and appellee. Ramlo, Anderson & Associates, Fargo, for defendant and appellant; argued by Robert A. Ramlo, Fargo. PEDERSON, Justice. This involves a motion to dismiss an appeal from an interlocutory order denying a closure of pretrial proceedings in a criminal case. LaFontaine "admits that his appeal. . . is not within the purview of N.D. C.C. 29-28-06." The appeal is dismissed. LaFontaine argues that the order which denied him closure of pretrial proceedings took away from him a substantial constitutional right and that, as we said in State v. Jelliff, 251 N.W.2d 1, 4 (N.D.1977), "statutes conferring the right to appeal must be liberally construed, and that in determining appealability it is not the label which controls but, rather, the effect." Section 29-28-06, NDCC, provides: The United States Supreme Court where, unlike North Dakota, appeals are not a matter of right, has said in a civil case that an order is appealable "because it is a final disposition of a claimed right which is not an ingredient of the cause of action and does not require consideration with it." Cohen v. Beneficial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546-547, 69 S. Ct. 1221, 1226, 93 L. Ed. 1528 (1949). The same principle has been said to be applicable to federal criminal cases. See United States v. Fiumara, 605 F.2d 116, 117 (3d Cir. 1979), which refers to an exception to the rule of finality under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 that permits appeals when the right asserted is "too important to be denied review and too independent of the cause itself to require that appellate consideration be deferred until the whole case is adjudicated." Neither Cohen v. Beneficial Loan Corp. nor United States v. Fiumara has application to appeals to this court. We must therefore independently determine, under North Dakota law, whether or not a liberal construction of § 29-28-06, or any other maxim of law, permits this appeal. LaFontaine misreads Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 443 U.S. 368, 99 S. Ct. 2898, 61 L. Ed. 2d 608 (1979), when he relies on it to support his contention that the refusal to grant closure deprived him of a substantial constitutional right. To the contrary, both the majority opinion and the dissent in that case acknowledged the validity of the principle stated in Singer v. United States, 380 U.S. 24, 35, 85 S. Ct. 783, 790, 13 L. Ed. 2d 630 (1964), that although an accused has a constitutional right to a public trial which he can waive under some circumstances, he has no absolute right to compel a private trial. See also United States v. Fiumara, supra, where the contention that Gannett Co. v. DePasquale supported a right to have the public excluded was rejected. The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides in part: Section 13 of the Constitution of North Dakota provides in part: Section 29-07-14, NDCC, states: As the record in this case stands, LaFontaine has made an initial appearance before the magistrate on several felony counts and bond has been set. The record does not show it, but apparently the trial court has stayed further proceedings pending the results of the appeal. It is difficult to comprehend how an argument could be made that even a most liberal interpretation of § 29-28-06 would permit us to find any of the five subsections applicable in a case in which not even a preliminary hearing has been held. LaFontaine's appeal is clearly not authorized by § 29-28-06. Finally, it is contended that Rule 4(b), NDRAppP, allows this appeal. Only a most tortuous route could lead to that conclusion. Rule 4(b) does not permit appeals not allowed by § 29-28-06. LaFontaine's argument is not persuasive. The appeal is dismissed and any stays of proceedings which may have been ordered are to be forthwith vacated in order to permit a speedy trial to which LaFontaine is entitled under the state and federal constitutions. ERICKSTAD, C. J., and PAULSON, SAND and VANDE WALLE, JJ. [1] The exclusion of certain persons from the courtroom during criminal proceedings may not always change the trial from a public trial to a private or secret trial. See State v. Nyhus, 19 N.D. 326, 124 N.W. 71 (1909). The facts presented to us by LaFontaine here fall far short of establishing an abuse of discretion as that term is defined in Piper v. Piper, 239 N.W.2d 1, 3 (N.D.1976).