Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-11-16438/USCOURTS-ca9-11-16438-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 510
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Vacate Sentence
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

SUNDEEP DHARNI,

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 11-16438

D.C. Nos.

2:10-CV-02934-EJG

2:05-CR-00306-EJG

ORDER

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of California

Edward J. Garcia, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

September 10, 2013—San Francisco, California

Filed July 2, 2014

Before: J. Clifford Wallace, Raymond C. Fisher, and

Marsha S. Berzon, Circuit Judges.

Order;

Dissent by Judge Wallace

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2 UNITED STATES V. DHARNI

SUMMARY*

Habeas Corpus

The panel granted a petition for panel rehearing, vacated

its previous opinion, denied a petition for rehearing en banc

as moot, and issued a limited remand in a case in which the

defendant filed a motion to vacate, set aside or correct his

sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255 based on the closure

of the courtroom during voir dire and ineffective assistance

of counsel. 

The panel wrote that it did not decide the case with a full

understanding of its procedural posture. The panel granted

the defendant’s petition for panel rehearing because the

defendant suffered possible prejudice from the combination

of the government’s change in position and the misleading

language of the panel’s previous order granting the

defendant’s motion for bail pending appeal.

The panel remanded to the district court, given the

contested nature of the facts and the paucity of the record. 

The panel instructed that the scope of the remand is limited

to: 1) allowing the parties to supplement the record with

evidence concerning the scope of the courtroom closure and

2) permitting the district court to make findings of fact on

whether spectators had an opportunity to reenter the

courtroom during voir dire, including whether seats in fact

opened up and, if so, whether spectators would have been

aware of the vacancies, and whether the district court and

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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UNITED STATES V. DHARNI 3

court officials would have allowed the spectators to enter

during voir dire.

Dissenting, Judge Wallace wrote that the original panel

decision affirming the district court was correct, and did not

prejudice the defendant. He wrote that the majority’s order

needlessly delays resolution of the defendant’s habeas

petition.

ORDER

Appellant Sundeep Dharni’s petition for panel rehearing

is GRANTED. The previous opinion, United States v.

Dharni, 738 F.3d 1186 (9th Cir. 2014), is VACATED. The

petition for rehearing en banc is DENIED AS MOOT.

I.

Our resolution of this case was premised on the

conclusion that “the district court judge specifically

authorized family members and spectators to reenter when

seats were available.” Dharni, 738 F.3d at 1189. It was on

that understanding that we held that “the insufficient seating

for spectators and family members for a limited period of

time of uncertain duration did not violate Dharni’s rights.” 

Id. In his petition, Dharni explains that the government’s

position before the district court was actually that the closure

was for the entire voir dire period, not only until seats opened

up, and that the district court’s decision rested on the same

understanding. See Appellant’s Pet. for Reh’g and for Reh’g

En Banc, at 4–5, Feb. 14, 2014, ECF No. 48. The

government does not contest those observations. See

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4 UNITED STATES V. DHARNI

Appellee’s Br. in Opp’n to Appellant’s Pet. for Reh’g and for

Reh’g En Banc, at 10 n.1, Mar. 19, 2014, ECF No. 53. 

Because the government never asserted the premise on which

we decided this case until the filing of its Answering Brief on

appeal, Dharni did not rebut it by making a record before the

district court regarding the scope of the courtroom closure. 

See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(b). Our opinion relied on the absence

of such a record. See Dharni, 738 F.3d at 1189.

Dharni did not bring the government’s switch of positions

and its possible prejudice to Dharni to our attention until he

filed this petition, because the misleading language of our

previous order granting his motion for bail pending appeal

under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 23(b) reasonably

led him to believe that we had commanded him not to file a

reply brief. See Order, Mar. 7, 2013, ECF No. 24. We

therefore did not decide this case with a full understanding of

its procedural posture. See Fed. R. App. P. 40(a)(2). Since

Dharni suffered possible prejudice from the combination of

the government’s change in position and the misleading

language of our previous order, we grant his petition for panel

rehearing.

Given the contested nature of the facts in this case and the

paucity of the record, we REMAND the matter to the district

court. See, e.g., Howard v. Clark, 608 F.3d 563, 565 (9th Cir.

2010). The scope of that remand shall be limited to:

1) allowing the parties to supplement the record with

evidence concerning the scope of the courtroom closure and

2) permitting the district court to make findings of fact on

whether spectators had an opportunity to reenter the

courtroom during voir dire, including whether seats in fact

opened up and, if so, whether spectators would have been

aware of the vacancies, and whether the district court and

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UNITED STATES V. DHARNI 5

court officials would have allowed the spectators to enter

during voir dire.

II.

Although one might not realize it from reading the

extensive dissent, we are deciding nothing more at this

juncture than that a factual premise important to our original

holding may not be accurate, and that we should find out

whether it is. Assessing the potential triviality of a closure

that spanned the entirety of voir dire would be a far different,

and considerably more difficult, inquiry than the one we

undertook in our now-vacated opinion, where we assumed a

temporary closure. “Where ‘the courtroom was totally closed

to the general public at some critical juncture in the

proceedings,’” we deem the closure “substantial,” not trivial. 

United States v. Rivera, 682 F.3d 1224, 1231 (9th Cir. 2012)

(quoting Bruan v. Powell, 227 F.3d 908, 917 (7th Cir. 2000)). 

Because “[t]he process of juror selection is itself a matter of

importance,” Press-Enter. Co. v. Superior Court of Calif.,

Riverside Cnty., 464 U.S. 501, 505 (1984), it is far from selfevident that the Sixth Amendment would tolerate closure of

the entirety of voir dire.

The dissent’s citations, see Dissent 19–20, certainly do

not compel the conclusion that the Sixth Amendment

tolerates closure of the entirety of voir dire. United States v.

Withers did not assume that a judge had closed the entirety of

voir dire upon ordering spectators to leave at the beginning of

jury selection; it remanded for further factual development of

the claim, as we do today. 638 F.3d 1055, 1064, 1068–69

(9th Cir. 2010). And the dissent’s remaining citations are

neither binding nor persuasive. United States v. Santos,

501 F. App’x 630 (9th Cir. 2012), is an unpublished

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6 UNITED STATES V. DHARNI

memorandum disposition, and so not precedential. See 9th

Cir. R. 36–3(a). Gibbons v. Savage, 555 F.3d 112 (2d Cir.

2009), emanates from another circuit. And the closure there

was not for the entirety of voir dire, as the dissent contends,

but only for an afternoon, which was largely occupied by

“private interviews of individual jurors as to their reasons for

inability to serve . . . .” Id. at 121; see also id. at 114. “The

next morning, when voir dire resumed, Gibbons’s mother was

allowed to watch the proceedings.” Id. at 121 (emphasis

added).

Moreover, although the dissent suggests otherwise,

defendant’s lack of opportunity to file a reply brief in this

court was a matter brought to our attention only on rehearing. 

It is not at all unusual for appellants to fail to file reply briefs,

which are optional, see Fed. R. App. P. 28(c), and so there

was no reason to inquire into why that happened. And again,

even if one member of the panel did realize that — which

would have required reading with great care the briefing

schedule contained in a collateral order, the order granting

bail — the other two, understandably, did not.

Although Dharni does bear the burden of proof, see

Varghese v. Uribe, 736 F.3d 817, 823 (9th Cir. 2013)

(28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition), we cannot hold against him his

failure to develop a record as to whether the closure was for

the entire voir dire. Dharni so asserted throughout the district

court § 2255 proceedings, without any objection from the

government. The government thus acceded to Dharni’s

version of events before the district court, and directed its

arguments accordingly. The dissent maintains that Dharni

squandered his “opportunity to present precisely the type of

evidence [we] say[] could vindicate his claim.” Dissent 16. 

But, as a practical matter, Dharni had no reason to retread

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UNITED STATES V. DHARNI 7

common ground by proving a factual point the government

itself accepted.1

Beyond those points, we have no reason to engage with

the dissent at this juncture. We may find out after the limited

remand that our original factual premise was true, in which

case we could simply reinstate our previous opinion and, as

we did in that opinion, decline to address as unnecessary to

our result the various questions concerning the impact on

habeas corpus of structural errors.

By declining unnecessarily to address questions not

presently before us, we do not, of course, mean to signal any

agreement with the dissent’s analysis. We caution that the

analysis should be regarded for precedential purposes as

exactly what it is — a dissent, to which only one judge on a

three-judge panel ascribes.

III.

We VACATE submission of this case, and retain

jurisdiction over this appeal pending the district court’s

disposition of this limited remand. The parties shall notify

the court within seven days of entry of the district court’s

order. We shall determine at that time whether the case

requires supplemental briefing or can be resubmitted on the

1 The government’s Opposition to Dharni’s motion assumed that the

public had been excluded. It did not challenge the factual predicate of

Dharni’s claim, which it described as “the [district] court excluded

[Dharni’s] family members from the court during jury selection.” The

government described the district court’s removal of the public from the

courtroom as an “exclusion order,” and later stated that “[t]he exclusion

of family members from jury selection did not affect the composition of

the record or require inquiries about matters placed into evidence.”

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8 UNITED STATES V. DHARNI

existing briefs and arguments. See, e.g., Espinosa v. United

Student Aid Funds, Inc., 530 F.3d 895, 899 (9th Cir. 2008)

(per curiam); Eyak Native Village v. Daley, 375 F.3d 1218,

1219 (9th Cir. 2004) (en banc) (order).

Petition for panel rehearing GRANTED; previous

opinion VACATED; petition for rehearingen banc DENIED

AS MOOT; SUBMISSION VACATED; REMANDED

FOR A LIMITED PURPOSE.

WALLACE, Circuit Judge, dissenting:

I dissent from the majority’s order granting the petition

for panel rehearing, vacating our panel decision, vacating

submission, and remanding to the district court. Our original

panel decision was correct, and did not prejudice Dharni in

any way. The majority’s erroneous order needlessly delays

resolution of Dharni’s habeas petition, seven years after

Dharni’s criminal trial and conviction.

I conclude that the majority’s order is incorrect for two

reasons. First, even though the government did not

specifically argue before the district court in its opposition to

Dharni’s habeas petition about the extent of the courtroom

closure during voir dire, Dharni had the opportunity to make

a record regarding the scope of the closure. Indeed, he did

argue before the district court that the closure was for the

entirety of voir dire, although he provided no record evidence

to support that contention. Second, the government did not

switch its legal position, but consistently argued the only

legally relevant point: that the courtroom closure was trivial.

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UNITED STATES V. DHARNI 9

Additionally, although the issue may not yet be properly

before this court, any remand should be unnecessary. Even if

the courtroom closure was not trivial and violated Dharni’s

Sixth Amendment rights, we should deny Dharni’s petition

because he has not claimed, much less established, that he

was actually prejudiced by the closure. This correct statement

of law is currently subject to intracircuit dispute. If the district

court on remand finds that the closure was for the entirety of

voir dire, that spectators had no opportunity to reenter the

courtroom, and ultimately that the closure was not trivial, we

could only grant Dharni habeas relief subsequent to an en

banc decision resolving the dispute.

I.

To understand the majority’s errors, a full discussion of

the procedural posture of this case is necessary. Before voir

dire began in Dharni’s criminal trial for violations of

18 U.S.C. §§ 844 and 1341, in early July 2007, the district

court judge stated he “anticipate[d] some problem because of

the 4th of July holiday and possible hardship excuses.”

Accordingly, he expanded the number of prospective jurors.

On the morning the trial began, the judge stated that when

the jury comes up, I’m going to ask all family

members to go out in the hall. We need every

seat in the audience section of the courtroom

as we called in extra jurors because of the

vacation problem. So that during jury

selection, all of the family and friends of the

defendant and any other spectators that are out

there will wait out in the hall during jury

selection until seats open up [emphasis

added].

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Dharni’s lawyer did not object to this statement. A few

moments later, the judge asked “the family of the defendant

and other spectators [to] please leave the courtroom.” After

the spectators had presumably left, the judge welcomed the

prospective jury and stated that he “called in extra jurors

today for jury selection,” and that the courtroom did not

“have much audience room.”

During jury selection, the judge excused five potential

jurors based on peremptory challenges, and then took a

fifteen-minute recess. When selection reconvened, another

nine potential jurors were excused because of challenges. In

total, fourteen potential jurors were excused before the jury

and the two alternates were empanelled. At no point during

selection did Dharni’s attorney object to any absence of the

family members or other spectators.

Dharni was convicted. He appealed the conviction to this

court, contending that the district court improperly admitted

evidence, limited cross-examination, and imposed an

improper sentence. We affirmed his conviction. United States

v. Dharni, 324 F. App’x 554 (9th Cir. 2009).

On October 29, 2010, about a year and a half after our

affirmance, Dharni filed a pro se petition for habeas relief

under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. Dharni claimed three relevant errors

in his habeas petition, for the first time. He argued he was

denied his right to a public trial because of the courtroom

closure, that his trial counsel committed ineffective assistance

of counsel by failing to object to the closure, and that his

appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the

courtroom closure on direct appeal.

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UNITED STATES V. DHARNI 11

According to Dharni’s petition, the closure of the

courtroom during voir dire violated his Sixth Amendment

rights. Dharni argued that he did not need to show that the

closure prejudiced his case at trial, because unjustified

closures of the courtroom are “structural errors.” He argued

that such “structural errors” are per se prejudicial. He

specifically stated that had his appellate attorney raised the

issue on direct appeal “there is an absolute degree of certainty

. . . that Petitioner would have prevailed in having his

conviction over turned [sic] or issued a new trial.” Dharni

offered no evidence that he was prejudiced by the courtroom

closure.

In response to Dharni’s petition, the government argued

that he had waived his right of review of the courtroom

closure by failing to object to the closure at trial, or to raise it

on direct appeal. The government argued that this waiver

could not be overcome based on allegedly ineffective

assistance of counsel, because Dharni’s lawyers had not acted

objectively unreasonably or caused him actual prejudice, and

that courtroom closures are not structural errors requiring

automatic reversal. The government argued that the

“exclusion of the public during questioning of jurors . . .

[was] so trivial as to not implicate the defendant’s Sixth

Amendment rights.” Finally, the government argued that the

Supreme Court’s decision applying the Sixth Amendment

right to a public trial to voir dire, Presley v. Georgia,

558 U.S. 209 (2010), was not retroactive before 2010 and

therefore could not disturb Dharni’s conviction.

In reply, Dharni argued he had not waived his right of

review regarding the closure by failing to object or raise the

issue on appeal, because the error was structural and thus

automatically reviewable based on ineffective assistance of

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12 UNITED STATES V. DHARNI

counsel, regardless of whether Dharni showed that his

lawyers’ failures to object or raise the closure had prejudiced

him. Dharni argued that Presley did apply to his criminal trial

because the Supreme Court specifically stated that its holding

was “well settled” under its prior precedent. Finally, Dharni

argued that the courtroom closure was not trivial. Dharni

offered evidence about the size of the courtroom where his

trial took place, and repeatedlyargued that the judge’s request

that spectators leave the courtroom in his case “involved a

total closure,” subject to a “more rigorous” review before

exclusion.

The district court denied Dharni’s habeas petition. The

court held that as of Dharni’s trial date, “it was an open

question if the Sixth Amendment right to a public trial

extended to jury selection and voir dire.” Regardless, the

court determined that the request that spectators, including

family members, leave the courtroom temporarily was at

most a trivial closure that did not implicate the Sixth

Amendment values behind the right to a public trial. Because

any closure of the courtroom during jury selection was trivial,

the court concluded, Dharni suffered no prejudice from his

counsel’s failure to object or appeal, which doomed his

ineffective assistance of counsel claim.

Dharni appealed to this court. A motions panel granted a

certificate of appealability for two issues: “(1) whether the

trial court’s exclusion of appellant’s family and all other

spectators during voir dire violated his Sixth Amendment

right to a public trial, including whether appellant has

procedurallydefaulted this claim; and (2) whether appellant’s

counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to raise this

Sixth Amendment challenge at trial or on direct appeal.” In

that order, the motions panel also appointed Dharni counsel

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UNITED STATES V. DHARNI 13

to assist him in his appeal, and established the following

briefing schedule: “[t]he opening brief is due October 31,

2012; the answering brief is due November 30, 2012; the

optional reply brief is due within 14 days after service of the

answering brief.”

After an extension, Dharni filed his opening brief on

November 15, 2012. Dharni argued once again that the

courtroom closure violated his Sixth Amendment rights, that

courtroom closures are structural errors meriting automatic

reversal, and that he presumptively suffered prejudice from

the closure.

On February 7, 2013, three months after Dharni filed his

opening brief, Dharni moved for bail pending appeal. The

government opposed the grant of bail on February 20, 2013,

and Dharni replied on February 27, 2013. On February 27,

2013, the government submitted its answering brief to

Dharni’s merits appeal.

On March 7, 2013, a motions panel, composed of

different judges than those who heard the certificate of

appealability, granted Dharni’s motion for bail pending

appeal. That motions panel stated that Dharni had shown that

he was not likely to flee or pose a danger to anyone’s safety,

and that he had “a high probability of success such that this

is an extraordinary case.” In its order, the motions panel

stated that “[u]pon the filing of the [government’s] answering

brief [submitted the week before], principal briefing will be

completed.”

In the government’s answering brief on the merits,

submitted February 27, 2013 and filed by this court on March

7, 2013, the government argued that “[t]he record

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14 UNITED STATES V. DHARNI

demonstrates that it was not the court’s intention to close the

courtroom during the entirety of voir dire,” and more broadly

that the courtroom closure was trivial. The government also

argued that courtroom closures are not structural errors

meriting automatic reversal, and that Dharni had never shown

that he was prejudiced by either the courtroom closure or his

trial and appellate counsels’ failure to object or raise the

closure. Dharni did not file any reply brief on the merits.

We affirmed the district court’s denial of Dharni’s

petition. United States v. Dharni, 738 F.3d 1186 (9th Cir.

2014). We held that the courtroom closure was trivial,

because it did not infringe upon the values behind the Sixth

Amendment right to a public trial. Id. at 1189. We held that

because the district judge “specifically stated that spectators

should ‘wait out in the hall during jury selection until seats

open up, [s]pectators were therefore free to reenter the

courtroom to observe the voir dire as jurors were excused,”

and that “[f]ive spectators could have reentered the courtroom

for the remainder of voir dire after the [court’s] recess.” Id.

(emphasis added). We further stated that “Dharni has offered

no evidence, nor have we found any evidence in the record,

that court personnel prevented the spectators from reentering

the courtroom.” Id. We continued that because “the district

court judge specifically authorized family members and

spectators to reenter when seats were available, the

insufficient seating for spectators and family members for a

limited period of time of uncertain duration did not violate

Dharni’s rights.” Id. Because the closure was trivial, we also

rejected Dharni’s claims of ineffective assistance of counsel.

Id. at 1189–90.

Now Dharni petitions for panel rehearing and en banc

review, asserting that the government did not argue before the

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UNITED STATES V. DHARNI 15

district court that the judge intended for family members to

return to the courtroom on their own as they observed

prospective jurors leaving. According to Dharni, this

argument was raised for the first time on appeal before us in

the government’s answering brief, and therefore was

forfeited.

The majority agrees. According to the majority, because

of the “government’s switch of positions,” Dharni never had

the opportunity to develop facts that showed the courtroom

closure “was for the entire voir dire period, not only until

seats opened up.” Majority Order at 3–4. The majority asserts

that Dharni could not point out the government’s allegedly

different positions because of “misleading language” in our

previous order regarding his motion for bail pending appeal.

Id. at 4. Thus, according to the majority, we must remand this

case to the district court to determine the scope of the

courtroom closure, and whether spectators were aware and

had an actual opportunity to reenter the courtroom during voir

dire. Id. at 4–15.

As an initial matter, I agree with the majority that the

language the motions panel used in its order granting Dharni

bail was misleading and improper. It is standard practice for

our court to include language instructing the appellant that the

optional reply brief is due within 14 days after the filing of

the answering brief. The motions panel failed to include that

language, stating instead that “[u]pon the filing of the

[government’s] answering brief [submitted the week before],

principal briefing will be completed.” That was misleading,

and could reasonably be read to preclude the filing of any

reply brief.

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16 UNITED STATES V. DHARNI

But I nonetheless dissent. Dharni already had an

opportunity to present precisely the type of evidence the

majority says could vindicate his claim, and he failed to do

so. The government has not switched its relevant legal

position, so we can still affirm the district court’s denial of

the habeas petition. Additionally, under a correct

understanding of the law of procedural default, we do not

need to remand this case, because even if Dharni could show

that the closure was not trivial, he has not claimed that the

closure prejudiced him.

II.

According to the majority, it vacates and remands our

panel decision for “nothing more . . . than that a factual

premise important to our original holding may not be

accurate.” Majority Order at 5. But Dharni bore the burden of

proof in this action for habeas relief. Varghese v. Uribe,

736 F.3d 817, 823 (9th Cir. 2013). Dharni knew he should

have submitted evidence about the scope of the courtroom

closure and whether spectators had an opportunity to reenter

the courtroom during voir dire, including whether seats

opened up and whether court personnel would have allowed

the spectators to reenter, the precise evidence the majority

seeks on remand. Majority Order at 4–5. The motions panel’s

erroneous suggestion that briefing was completed with the

filing of the government’s answering brief had nothing to do

with Dharni’s earlier failure before the district court to submit

sufficient evidence to support his argument that the closure

was not trivial.

The government argued in its opposition to Dharni’s

habeas petition before the district court that the courtroom

closure was trivial. We and our sister circuits have held that

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UNITED STATES V. DHARNI 17

closures are trivial based on a number of considerations.

Some of those considerations include the size of the

courtroom and whether the district court had specifically

authorized spectators to return to available seating, United

States v. Shyrock, 342 F.3d 948, 974–75 (9th Cir. 2003)

(“[s]pecifically, the district court always allowed Appellants’

family members and the general public to use the available

seating”), and whether court personnel prevented spectators

from returning. Owens v. United States, 483 F.3d 48, 61 (1st

Cir. 2007) (“[t]wo members of Owens family [sic] submitted

affidavits stating that uniformed officers prevented [family

members] from entering the courtroom during the first day of

jury selection in Owens’ trial”).

Thus, when Dharni filed his reply brief before the district

court, he knew and had the opportunity to submit evidence

about the size of the courtroom and whether court personnel

prevented spectators from entering the courtroom. He brought

as much evidence as he could about the size of the courtroom,

attaching two drawings of the courtroom to his reply brief. He

does not seem to have offered any evidence that court

personnel prevented spectators from returning. Nor did he

present any evidence that the district court’s specific

authorization that spectators could reenter when seats opened

up was misunderstood to mean that spectators could not

reenter when seats opened up.

Dharni knew from our case law that the evidence the

majority seeks on remand was critical to his claim that the

closure was not trivial. Indeed, he actually provided

argument, though not evidence, in his reply brief about the

scope of the courtroom closure, arguing that the closure was

“complete.” He also cited the First Circuit’s decision in

Owens, which stated that whether spectators were prevented

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from returning to the courtroom is an important factor in

determining that the closure was not trivial. His failure to

convince the district court that the closure in his case was not

trivial is not the result of the “government’s switch of

positions.” Majority Order at 4. That failure stems from

Dharni’s own inability to provide sufficient evidence about

the closure. If the majority disagrees with the district court’s

conclusion that the closure was trivial, it should so hold on

the basis of the evidence Dharni has already submitted.

Instead, the majority needlessly gives Dharni another bite of

the apple. The evidence Dharni failed to submit about the size

of the courtroom and whether court personnel prevented

spectators from entering the courtroom was not “common

ground” that “the government itself accepted.” Majority

Order at 6–7.

There is no reason to remand this case. Dharni could have

submitted evidence about triviality, and about the precise

issues on which the majority remands. His failure to do so

before the district court means he suffered no prejudice from

the motions panel’s misleading suggestion regarding his reply

brief.

Further, the majority states that it “did not decide this case

with a full understanding of its procedural posture.” Majority

Order at 4, citing Fed. R. App. P. 40(a)(2). I admit that I am

confused by this statement. The entire procedural posture of

this case, described above, was available when we issued our

opinion, either through our court’s electronic database and

other resources, or through a careful reading of the excerpts

of record. I, for one, did decide this case with a full

understanding of the procedural posture, and did not

“overlook[] or misapprehend[]” any point of law or fact. Fed.

R. App. P. 40(a)(2).

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UNITED STATES V. DHARNI 19

III.

The majority errs in remanding this case for another

reason. The majority is technically correct that the

government presented a slightly different argument in its

appellate brief from its argument before the district court.

Before that court, the government did not argue that the

district court judge intended for spectators to be able to return

to the courtroom once seats opened. That means that the

government did not argue before the district court that closure

was “partial” rather than “total.” Before us, the government

argued that “[t]he record demonstrates that it was not the

court’s intention to close the courtroom during the entirety of

voir dire,” suggesting that the courtroom closure may have

been partial, rather than for the entirety of voir dire.

However, this “shift” is irrelevant. The legal question we

reviewed was not whether the court intended to close the

courtroom for all of the hearing. The legal question we

reviewed was whether the closure was trivial. A closure can

be “total” but still trivial. See, e.g., United States v. Withers,

638 F.3d 1055, 1063–64 (9th Cir. 2010) (a district court

violates a defendant’s right to a public trial when “it totally

closes the courtroom to the public, for a non-trivial

duration,” and holding that when the judge stated “all you

people out there are going to have to be out of the courtroom”

for the entirety of voir dire, the closure may still be trivial)

(emphasis added)1; United States v. Santos, 501 F. App’x

1 The majority misinterprets Withers in its discussion. Majority Order at

5. According to the majority, “it is far from self-evident that the Sixth

Amendment would tolerate closure of the entirety of voir dire.” Id. at 5

But that is precisely what we countenanced in Withers. Our legal analysis

there was that “[a] district court violates a defendant’s right to a public

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20 UNITED STATES V. DHARNI

630, 633 (9th Cir. 2012) (a closure for all of voir dire because

of the size of the courtroom was still trivial); Gibbons v.

Savage, 555 F.3d 112, 121 (2d Cir. 2009) (a closure for the

entirety of voir dire was still trivial).

The government has never changed its position that the

closure was trivial. It argued that the closure was trivial

before the district court. Likewise, it argued that the closure

was trivial in its appellate brief. Because the government has

consistently made the same dispositive legal argument, it has

not meaningfully shifted its position. We could consider the

government’s slightly different argument that the district

judge did not intend for the courtroom to be closed through

the entirety of voir dire, despite its not being raised in

opposition to Dharni’s habeas petition in the district court,

because the broader legal argument of triviality is properly

before us. See, e.g., Kamen v. Kemper Fin. Servs., Inc.,

500 U.S. 90, 99 (1991) (“[w]hen an issue or claim is properly

before the court, the court is not limited to the particular legal

theories advanced by the parties, but rather retains the

independent power to identify and apply the proper

construction of governing law”); Thompson v. Runnels,

705 F.3d 1089, 1098 (9th Cir. 2013) (in a habeas case,

explaining that “parties are not limited to the precise

arguments they made below,” and can make “new arguments

on appeal if they are intertwined with the validity of the

claim,” which means that “we may consider new legal

trial when it totally closes the courtroom to the public, for a non-trivial

duration, without first complying with the four requirements” from the

Supreme Court’s precedents. 638 F.3d at 1063. In other words, when a

district court “totally closes the courtroom to the public” without

complying with the Supreme Court’s requirements, the closure does not

violate the Sixth Amendment so long as it is for a trivial duration. Thus,

some “total” closures can still be trivial.

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UNITED STATES V. DHARNI 21

arguments raised by the parties relating to claims previously

raised in the litigation”).

Our now-vacated panel decision was not limited to the

question of whether the closure was partial or total. Instead,

we affirmed the district court because we concluded that the

closure was trivial. We decided as a matter of law that the

district judge’s statement to the spectators was not a closure

of the courtroom for the entirety of voir dire. That legal

conclusion was one factor, along with the size of the

courtroom, the lack of evidence that spectators were

prevented from reentering the courtroom, and the uncertain

duration of the closure, to affirm the district court’s

conclusion that the closure was trivial.

Because the government always argued that the closure

was trivial, it was free to make “new arguments on appeal

[because] they [were] intertwined with the validity of the

claim.” Runnels, 705 F.3d at 1098. The government argued

that the district court’s intention was not to close the

courtroom during the entirety of voir dire. We agreed with

that position. Dharni, 738 F.3d at 1189.

The majority tries to recontextualize our legal holdings

about the words the judge used as factual findings, subject to

further development of facts. Majority Order at 4–5 (“[t]he

scope of that remand shall be limited to . . . permitting the

district court to make findings of fact on whether spectators

had an opportunity to reenter the courtroom during voir

dire”).

But that is incorrect. The panel’s understanding that

spectators could return during voir dire did not need to be

based on facts in the record, but was based on our legal

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22 UNITED STATES V. DHARNI

interpretation of the actual words the district judge used,

when he stated that “family and friends of the defendant and

any other spectators that are out there will wait out in the hall

during jury selection until seats open up.” Indeed, Dharni

admits this in his petition for rehearing, arguing that the

panel’s “reading” – i.e. our legal interpretation – “of the

district court closure order is unreasonable and unfair to

appellant and his family.”

The majority also cites Dharni’s explanation that “the

district court’s decision rested on the same understanding”

that the courtroom was closed for all of voir dire. Majority

Order at 3. But of course, the panel legally interpreted the

words the judge used. We reverse “understandings” and legal

decisions of district courts all the time.

The government has never switched its broader legal

theory about the courtroom closure. It has consistently argued

that the closure was trivial. The panel agreed with that, in part

because of our decision on the narrower legal question,

argued only by the government on appeal, that the closure

was temporary. The panel was free to consider this narrower

legal argument, and no further facts could disturb that

conclusion.

IV.

Thus, I dissent, because I conclude our panel decision was

correctly decided and the motions panel’s order did not

prejudice Dharni. But even if the closure of the courtroom

was not trivial, and even if it violated the Sixth Amendment,

Dharni did not object to the closure at trial or on appeal, and

has never argued that he suffered any prejudice from the

closure. Thus, assuming a courtroom closure is a “structural

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UNITED STATES V. DHARNI 23

error” subject to automatic reversal of conviction, Dharni

procedurally defaulted the claim, and has not shown the

“cause” and “actual prejudice” needed to overcome the

default. See, e.g., Vansickel v. White, 166 F.3d 953 (9th Cir.

1999).

Our statement of the law in Vansickel, which is consistent

with that of the Second, Fifth, Eighth, Tenth and Eleventh

Circuits, has been confused by United States v. Withers,

638 F.3d 1055 (9th Cir. 2010). Whether habeas petitioners

must show they suffered actual prejudice from a structural

error if they procedurally defaulted the error is now the

subject of intracircuit conflict. If the district court were to

find that the closure was not trivial and violated the Sixth

Amendment, only our court en banc, not a three-judge panel,

could resolve the conflict before granting relief to Dharni. I

believe that our decision in Vansickel and the comparable

decisions of our sister circuits are correct. Under Vansickel,

Dharni’s failure to plead that he suffered actual prejudice

from the courtroom closure means we should affirm the

denial of Dharni’s habeas petition even if the closure was not

trivial.

A.

Dharni did not object to the courtroom closure or raise the

issue on direct appeal. A federal court can thus only offer him

relief under section 2255 if he shows both “cause” excusing

this procedural default and “actual prejudice” from the errors

of which he complains. United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152,

167–68 (1982). Dharni has not affirmatively pleaded that he

suffered any prejudice. Instead, he argues that because the

courtroom closure was a “structural error,” which affects the

framework of the trial itself, prejudice must be presumed. As

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Dharni explains, his trial and appellate attorneys must have

acted ineffectively, because had they raised the courtroom

closure either at trial or on direct appeal, he would have

merited automatic reversal of conviction. Thus, he argues that

his attorneys’ failures to raise the issue caused him the actual

prejudice of not having his conviction reversed.

B.

Assuming that a courtroom closure during voir dire is a

structural error, Dharni argues that he is entitled to relief

despite his procedural default, because he presumptively

suffered prejudice from his attorneys’ failure to object at trial

or raise the closure on direct appeal. But whether we presume

prejudice for structural errors is subject to decisions where we

have come to opposite conclusions. Compare Vansickel v.

White, 166 F.3d 953 (9th Cir. 1999) with United States v.

Withers, 638 F.3d 1055, 1065–66 (9th Cir. 2010). Most of our

sister circuits have rejected the reasoning of Withers.

1.

In Withers, the panel considered a habeas petition based

on the closure of the courtroom during voir dire, where the

petitioner had not objected to the closure at trial or on appeal.

According to the panel, even though Withers had not shown

he was actually prejudiced by the closure, had his counsel on

direct appeal raised the argument, he “would have been

entitled to automatic reversal of his conviction and a new trial

had he established a violation.” Id. at 1065. His attorney’s

failure to raise the closure on appeal by definition constituted

“cause” and “actual prejudice.” Id. at 1065–66. The panel

also held there was a credible claim that Withers’ trial

counsel’s performance presumptivelyconstituted “cause” and

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UNITED STATES V. DHARNI 25

“actual prejudice” because his failure to object resulted in a

structural error. Id. at 1066–68.

These conclusions were contradictory to our prior

decision of Vansickel. In that case, a state court “erroneously

denied [the defendant] his full allotment of peremptory

challenges,” a mistake that at the time “require[d] automatic

reversal.” 166 F.3d at 955, 959, citing United States v.

Annigoni, 96 F.3d 1132 (9th Cir. 1996), overruled by Rivera

v. Illinois, 556 U.S. 148 (2009), as recognized by United

States v. Lindsey, 634 F.3d 541, 544 (9th Cir. 2011). But the

defendant did not object to the state court’s error during voir

dire. Id. at 955 (“defense counsel failed to make a

contemporaneous objection to the loss of peremptory

challenges”). The federal district court rejected the

defendant’s habeas petition. Id. at 956. We affirmed, because

the defendant had not established that he had suffered actual

prejudice. Critically, we distinguished prior cases including

Annigoni where we reversed convictions because of

erroneous denials of peremptory challenges. We held that

those reversals were in “direct federal appeal cases in which

the defendants timely objected in the district court to

erroneous limitation of their peremptory challenges.” Id. at

959. In other words, although the defendant complained of

what we then considered a structural error,2 we required that

2 We did not use the phrase “structural error,” but referred to “erroneous

denial of a peremptory challenge” as requiring “automatic reversal.”

Vansickel, 166 F.3d at 959. That followed our understanding in Annigoni

that some trial errors are “not amenable to harmless-error analysis,” but

do not necessarily “rise[] to the level of structural error.” 96 F.3d at 1144.

That understanding, that some errors require “automatic reversal” but are

not “structural errors,” is not consistent with later Supreme Court

decisions. Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 7 (1999) (stating that “[f]or

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26 UNITED STATES V. DHARNI

he affirmatively “establish prejudice,” and refused to hold

that he was entitled to a presumption of prejudice. Id.

We suggested two distinctions between Vansickel and

Annigoni and its progeny. Annigoni and the other cases were

(1) “direct federal appeal cases,” where (2) “the defendants

timely objected in the district court to erroneous limitation of

their peremptorychallenges.” Id. The first distinction, that the

underlying conviction was a state proceeding rather than a

federal proceeding, could not have been the basis for our

holding, because the same “cause” and “actual prejudice”

requirements apply to petitions seeking relief from state and

federal convictions, and did so at the time Vansickel was

decided. Frady, 456 U.S. at 167 (citing two cases involving

underlying state convictions to determine the standard for

review of federal convictions). The only proper distinction

between Vansickel and Annigoni then was that the defendant

in Annigoni contemporaneously objected to the denial of

peremptory challenges. In other words, we held that because

the defendant in Vansickel failed to object to the structural

error at trial, he was not entitled to a presumption of

prejudice.

Judge Reinhardt’s dissent clearly outlined the majority’s

holding. He argued that he believed it would be impossible

for the defendant to show prejudice, and stated his belief that

“the presumption of prejudice applies in habeas cases as well

as on direct appeal.” Vansickel, 166 F.3d at 960 (Reinhardt,

J., dissenting). Judge Reinhardt continued that even if a party

normally would need to demonstrate prejudice after

procedural default, “[w]hen the performance of counsel has

all other constitutional errors [besides structural errors], reviewing courts

must apply Rule 52(a)’s harmless-error analysis”).

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UNITED STATES V. DHARNI 27

been so egregious as to amount to a constructive denial of

counsel [by failing to object to an error that merits automatic

reversal], we presume prejudice.” Id. at 962.

The panel’s reasoning from Withers, without even

recognizing Vansickel, followed the dissent from the earlier

case rather than the majority holding. The Withers panel held

that a petitioner did not need to show prejudice when he did

not object to a structural error at trial or even raise the error

on appeal. Withers, 638 F.3d at 1065–67. Of course, the panel

was not free to ignore a majority holding of this court in favor

of a dissent. I believe that the two decisions are

irreconcilable. Accord Amy Knight Burns, Note,

Insurmountable Obstacles: Structural Errors, Procedural

Default, and Ineffective Assistance, 64 STAN. L. REV. 727,

758 (2012) (“[t]hough an earlier Ninth Circuit case

[Vansickel] required a showing of actual prejudice, Withers,

the most recent case in the Circuit, declares it an open

question without citing the earlier case”). The only way to

resolve such a conflict, which must be resolved if we are to

grant Dharni habeas relief, is through en banc review. United

States v. Hardesty, 977 F.2d 1347, 1348 (9th Cir. 1992) (en

banc) (“the appropriate mechanism for resolving an

irreconcilable conflict is an en banc decision”) (citation

omitted).

2.

Most of our sister circuits follow Vansickel and refuse to

reverse convictions automatically on direct or habeas review

based on unpreserved structural errors, instead requiring that

the defendant actually demonstrate how he was prejudiced.

United States v. Gomez, 705 F.3d 68, 74–76 (2d Cir. 2013) (a

courtroom closure was a structural error, but nonetheless the

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court refused to reverse because the defendant did not show

that the error “affected the fairness, integrity, or public

reputation of judicial proceedings”); Charboneau v. United

States, 702 F.3d 1132, 1138 & n.3 (8th Cir. 2013) (subjecting

an unpreserved challenge to a structural error to plain error

review and affirming the conviction); United States v.

Turietta, 696 F.3d 972, 976 n.9 (10th Cir. 2012) (“Turietta’s

claim of a ‘structural’ error has little bearing on the

application of the plain error test,” and refusing to reverse the

conviction under plain error review); United States v. Phipps,

319 F.3d 177, 189 n.14 (5th Cir. 2003) (an unchallenged

structural error is subject to plain error review and affirming

the conviction despite the error); see also Purvis v. Crosby,

451 F.3d 734, 743 (11th Cir. 2006) (“prejudice may not be

presumed but must be shown in order to establish ineffective

assistance of counsel based on the failure to raise a claim of

structural error at trial”); but see Owens v. United States,

483 F.3d 48 (1st Cir. 2007).

C.

The majority now remands this case to the district court

for fact-finding, which may lead the district court to find that

the closure here was not trivial. If the closure was not trivial,

though, Dharni is still not entitled to habeas relief under

Vansickel, because he has not demonstrated that he suffered

prejudice from the courtroom closure, but rather argued that

we must presume he has suffered such prejudice. If the

closure in Dharni’s trial is found to be not trivial, this court en

banc must consider his appeal to resolve the dispute between

Vansickel and Withers.

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UNITED STATES V. DHARNI 29

V.

The majority is wrong. Dharni was not prejudiced by the

government’s alleged switch in positions. The government

did not switch its positions as a matter of law. Finally, if on

remand the district court decides that the closure here was not

trivial, our court en banc must hear this appeal to resolve the

irreconcilable conflict in our case law. Without such review,

Dharni cannot receive relief even if the closure violated his

Sixth Amendment rights (which it did not), because he

procedurally defaulted the claim and has not shown that he

suffered prejudice from the closure.

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